Boss, Why Me?
by Inks Inc
Summary: After nearly two years of being sidelined by Gibbs, without rhyme or reason, Tony is done. He's done with trying to figure out what he did, or where it all went wrong. And it's high time Gibbs knew it. With words said that can never be unsaid, he bids a rapid farewell to his life as Gibbs' right hand man, seeking a clean break. But nothing is ever clean, not really. AU S13 Ending.
1. Entrance

The surroundings were familiar as he walked through the aged house, very familiar indeed. He'd once been as acquainted with this home as he was his own. Everything looked the same as he made his way across the living room floor, but everything was so very different. He'd never expected it to end like this, never even envisaged it. But, as he opened the familiar door…he knew there was no alternative. This was the way it was, and the way it had to be. He'd fought against it for over a solid year, and now… he was tired of fighting.

He didn't feel the rage he's grown accustomed to. Nor the hurt, nor even the confusion.

He felt nothing.

He felt empty.

Pushing open the creaking door, the well known scents hit him hard. How many times had he ambled down these stairs? How many drinks and conversations had taken place in this room? He didn't know, and as he plodded slowly down the stairs, the non caring enveloped him further. The sanding noises didn't cease or desist as he descended the last step. Not that he had expected them to. Holding the envelope in his hand loosely, he took in the hull of the new boat and shook his head.

Some things would never change.

And some things always would.

"Evening Boss," he greeted quietly, speaking to the back of the man who wasn't even acknowledging his presence, though knowing full well who had just entered his basement. Taking his time in straightening up, and slowly wiping his forehead, Gibbs turned to face his visitor with a raised brow.

"DiNozzo," he returned slowly, "What are you doing here?"

Tony smiled an emotionless smile. Couple of years back, before that damned boat shooting, that question would never have been asked. There had never been the need of a reason to drop in. There still wasn't as a matter of fact, for Abby, for McGee and for Bishop. But for him, like everything else, things had changed. He shrugged slightly, and felt the weight of the envelope in his hand grow heavier.

He thought he would find this difficult.

He thought he'd struggle and fumble to find the words. He thought it would be some kind of defining moment. He thought that it would mean something, to both of them.

But he was wrong.

Handing out the envelope to Gibbs, who took it instinctively, he shrugged once more. "I'm here to resign Boss," he explained evenly, "I'm giving you my three weeks' notice. I got a job with DC Vice. Means I can stay in town, but…I'm done with NCIS."

It took all his effort to not to add "and you."

There was a silence to beat all silences, but just for a moment.

"Sounds like a good gig," Gibbs eventually muttered, with an almost ingrained level of nonchalance, "I'm sure you'll fit right in there. Best of luck with it, DiNozzo." He moved forwards slightly, and offered a resoundingly perfunctory handshake. "We'll miss you."

Tony stared at the man and at the hand.

And stared.

The empty feeling he had experienced on the drive to Gibbs', and as he had wandered through the upper level of the house was leaving him now. Replacing it was the leaden anger, hurt and bewilderment that had dogged him for nearly two years. He hadn't expected the man to weep like an infant, or to beg him to stay. He wasn't deluded, nor moronic. But this…this cold, baseline level of disinterest was, even in the overall scheme of change, one hell of a kick in the teeth.

A cold smile spread across the handsome face, as he resolutely ignored the outstretched hand.

"Really are a bastard, aren't you Boss?"

Gibbs let his hand fall to his side, as he tilted his head and narrowed his eyes.

"What was that, DiNozzo?" he challenged quietly, a steely glint boring into Tony's eyes. "You come into my house, and talk to me like that?" He held up the resignation that he had accepted without a single question, after thirteen years loyal service and gave a twisted smirk. "You think just because you're running off to play with the big boys over in Vice, that you don't need to show me respect anymore?"

Tony instantly sensed and smelled that he'd been drinking.

His eyes roved behind the older man and saw the tell tale Mason jar.

He shook his head.

"Been overdoing it again, have you?"

Not needing to look to see what Tony was referring to, Gibbs felt the near constant rage flare up in him with a surging force. "Get out of my house," he snarled, "But don't be mistaken, I want that three weeks out of you before you go. I trained your sorry ass, taught you everything you god damned know. You'll be giving me your all for the next three weeks, or I'll make you regret it." He shot the younger man the look of disdain intermingled with disinterest that Tony had become accustomed to. "Out. Now."

Tony returned a similar look of disgust.

"You didn't teach me everything I know," he contradicted icily; "I am a damned good Agent, in my own right. I was a great cop before I ever laid eyes on you, and I'll be a great Agent long after I've forgotten all about you."

Gibbs smiled a slow smile of eerie contempt.

"You tell yourself that kiddo," he drawled, "Now, run along and get the hell out of my sight. I don't need any more house calls from you." He threw his head in the direction of the stair case. "Why don't you use your great _Agent like_ skills, and find the door. All by yourself."

The calm and almost catatonic feeling was rapidly leaving Tony. The hurt, the misery and the frustrations of the last year or so buzzing within him, threatening to burst their tired banks. He looked at Gibbs and in that moment, felt dizzy. The man had been one of the most important people in his life for such a long time; he was the father figure he'd never had. The one he'd gravitated to, the one he turned to. And for whatever reason or reasons unknown to him, Gibbs had turned.

Turned against him.

And only him.

When Gibbs shot him one last sneering look, and turned back towards his boat…that was when Tony saw red.

Redder than red.

He reached out and sharply grabbed his arm, twisting it in his grasp and preventing Gibbs from turning further. Shock splashed across the older man's face as he looked down at the vice like hold on his arm and the thunderous expression on his disenfranchised protégées face.

"You got one second to take your hands off me, before I knock you on your damned ass."

Tony twisted the arm further, and laughed coldly when Gibbs refused to show the obvious pain.

"You always were one unfeeling bastard, huh?"

The rage that had built within him was frothing at the mouth. He looked at the older man, and saw only the pain he had caused him. The way he had dismissed, denigrated and demeaned him. The way he had used the last two years to expel him from the tight knit group that was team Gibbs. The way, he had spent eleven, nearly twelve years under his tough, but ultimately caring guidance only to have spent the last year or so utterly in the cold. Without reason, or explanation. Without cause, or warrant.

He felt his very core shiver with the cumulative rage and the hurt.

He had put a brave face on it for so long.

Remained loyal for so long.

But now, as he looked into the lined face in front of him, engulfed in the stench of bourbon, he imagined himself implanting his fist between those eyes. He imagined the blood spurting from the nose, and the look of shock on the old man's face when he realised that he was no longer his whipping boy. No longer his puppy to kick, no longer there to expel his demons upon.

"Last warning DiNozzo," Gibbs hissed, his eyes flashing, "Take your hand off of me, before I snap it like a twig."

Tony cocked his head to one side, and obligingly removed his hand, lifting it into the air and examining it with an intense concentration.

"This hand?"

Gibbs merely growled deeply in his throat, his eyes flashing with menace. Tony chuckled with an eerie emptiness, before shrugging nonchalantly. "So you don't want me to hold your hand anymore, Boss? You don't want me to wipe your ass and take your shit? Gonna give that role to McGee now, are ya? Gonna make him your scapegoat, your punching bag?"

He chuckled darkly again, before seemingly being struck by inspiration.

"Speaking of punching bags…"

He smiled grimly once more, examining the hand that he'd removed from his soon to be ex-boss.

Before slowly curling that hand into a fist and landing it squarely on the elder man's jaw.

Gibbs never saw it coming

…..

A/N: Not my usual story, as I'm a huge Gibbs fan. This isn't a Gibbs bashing story, there's a plot to this. Will probably entail maybe two more chapters. Sort of an alternative ending to the last season, which didn't work for me. Will be updating Ohana soon also, for those following that one. Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you thought!

-Inks

….


	2. Basement Brawling

Gibbs tasted the rusty tinge of blood as it coated his tongue in outer bodily astonishment. The searing pain shot across his jaw line grew as he stared at his flushed protégée. Rubbing a hand across his face gingerly, he couldn't quite connect the pain with the man in front of him. He caught an intense flashback of the last time anything resembling fisticuffs between the two had occurred. Back when Kate had still been with them, back in the training ring at the Navy Yard. As he looked into the darkened with rage eyes staring back at him, he suddenly felt like that playful day was many, many lifetimes ago.

And all of a sudden, the rage flared. He was always angry these days, but in this instance the venomous anger was so strong he could almost taste it intermingled with his own blood. That he, the one he had taught everything to, the one he had dragged up could come into his house and throw punches in his basement tore a growl from his throat. He tilted his head to the side, eying Tony carefully. He could see that the younger man was actually as amazed as he was that such a blow had been landed. For some reason, that fact seemed to enrage him further.

He took one step towards his once upon a time second in command. No step backwards was taken. Tony looked him straight in the eye, and held his head high. "Go on then, old man," he laughed eerily, without the faintest trace of amusement, "Do it."

Gibbs felt the anger, barely controlled as it was, tear and claw viciously at his chest.

Tony laughed quietly once more.

"Coward?"

And that…that was when all hell broke loose.

Snarling, Gibbs stormed forward and caught Tony roughly around the neck. He wasn't as fast as he potentially used to be, but he was still fast as hell. Expectant as he was for the blow, and despite his able attempts to dodge it, Tony caught the full force of the first punch to his face. Reacting quickly, he wrenched himself out of the heavy grasp, as the blood trickled sluggishly from his nose. The two circled each other for a moment, each man's chest rising heavily as they stared at each other with narrowed gazes. Tony's heart was beating wildly, and yet he felt a strange calm encase him. It was like he was looking at and attempting to take down a perp.

Not the man he would once have died for.

Not the man who had once meant nearly everything to him.

Gibbs swallowed with difficulty as the adrenaline coursed through him like wildfire. His chest ached with the extreme beating of his heart. He felt empty and yet full of vitriolic rage as he looked at Tony squarely. Blood was smeared over the younger man's face, and he found that it didn't elicit the same response it had done so often before. He didn't feel that gruff, but caring instinct emerge at the sight of his protégées wounds. He felt only a savage satisfaction, and that was the feeling that propelled him onwards.

Tony expertly dodged the next blow, causing Gibbs to stumble slightly into his workbench.

A burst of indignant anger surged through him as he snarled and dragged his mentor roughly upwards. Turning him around, he drew back his fist and landed it squarely into the lined face. Blood that was not his spurted over his hands, and a primal rejoicing occurred deep within him. Drawing his fist back again, he landed it mercilessly into the older man's stomach. Gibbs buckled over, winded, before coughing blood onto the sawdust strewn floor.

He looked up at Tony and all the field agent could see was venom in his eyes.

Gibbs seized Tony's moment of speculation to his advantage. Hissing, he threw the younger man off him with a strength and a facial punch that belied his age. The visitor went hurtling across the floor, banging squarely into a wooden press. A low guttural groan escaped him as he desperately tried to right himself. The shadow of his mentor fell upon him as he lay winded upon the dusty floor.

"Get up," Gibbs spat through clenched teeth, "You want to come in here and fight me, big man?"

He stooped down and seized Tony with indecent force around the scruff. They were bloodied face to bloodied face.

"Then get your dumb as hell ass up and fight me."

Tony shuddered in his grasp. Throwing his hands off him in disgust, he jumped to his feet with a pronounced wince. Blood obscured his eyes, and he wiped it away impatiently only to have it return with a spring like force. He realised with a grimace that he was sporting a large gash above his right eye. Gibbs was right in front of him, with an odd expression on his face. Tony couldn't decipher it; he'd never seen it before. He searched desperately within him for the anger that had erupted within him, the one that had led to the first blow, the anger he needed to protect himself.

Instead, as the blood trickled into his lips, all he found was a desperate sadness.

Sadness so intense, so powerful it hurt more than all the physical blows that had been traded in the once safe basement. Gurgling over his split lip somewhat, he felt the rigidity drain out of his broad shoulders. Standing in front of the man who'd once been his stability, he shrugged with a moroseness that was almost impossible to measure. His vision of Gibbs was slightly obscured, as he rubbed a hand over his most certainly bruised ribs. The expression on the older man's face was just as incomprehensible. His voice was thick with laden down and conflicting emotion.

"How the fuck did it come to this?"

He swallowed some of his own blood, and spread his seeping lips once more.

"Why the fuck did it come to this?"

Gibbs stared. And stared, before staring some more. The rage he had felt was still there, but it was a different rage. It was a hollow rage that was coated with a suffocating guilt and sadness. He didn't know how in the hell to answer Tony's question, because he himself couldn't understand the answer. A trickle of bloodied saliva agitated his throat, and he coughed raucously. Running a hand through his hair, that was sticky with wood chippings and congealing blood, he shrugged with a seismic emotional conflict.

He couldn't take this.

This was too much.

He winced as he threw a hand in the direction of the dimly lit staircase.

"Get yourself and your fucking questions out of my house, while you still can."

…..

A/N: Gentle reminder, this is not a bashing fic. Another two or so chapters and I hope to write my own explanation of Gibbs' change in behaviour. Thanks for reading. Thoughts?

….


	3. The Expending of Explanations

A viscous droplet of blood hung precariously from Tony's nose for a moment, before it slowly gave way to gravity and fell with an oddly slow gate to splash daintily upon the dusty floor. Looking down at the shining drop of his own bodily fluids was oddly transfixing. But that transfixion was marred by an angry voice, seemingly far away such was the odd daze he was encased in. "Are you hearing me? I said get the hell out of my house. You got two seconds, before I throw you out."

Looking up slowly in response to the voice that seemed muted, a million miles away, Tony shook his head slowly. The daze was slowly slipping from him, as a sense of purpose was filling him, consuming him. He had given over a decade of his life to this man, to his team, to his crusades. He had followed him to the ends of the earth without batting an eye, he had sacrificed element upon element within his personal life. As a result, he was now on the wrong side of forty with only a shell of an apartment to his name. No wife, no girlfriend. No kid, not even a dog.

Nothing.

The least he was owed, the very least to which he was entitled to, was answers.

"I asked you," Tony said slowly, swiping the trickle of blood from his eye with a deliberate hand, "Why it came to this?" He walked slowly towards the elder of the two, who didn't take an equal step back. "When you came back after the shooting…you'd changed. To be expected, right? But…then it became pretty damn clear you were only changed when it came to me. I stepped up, Gibbs; I took over like you trained me to. You were our man down and I made sure the team kept going, and then you come back. I stepped aside. Just like after Mexico. No questions, no problems. I did a good job in leading, I know that. I know it deep in my gut. So…I'll ask you again. Why has it come to this?"

He spat blood onto the floor, clearing his windpipe.

"Because I'm telling you here and now Gibbs, I'm not leaving without answers. I gave you everything. I gave you everything for thirteen years. You owe me. I've never asked you for a thing, never did anything other than try to be like you, work like you. I did that for thirteen years, but now…now I'm done, Gibbs, I'm done. No more loyal St Bernard." He laughed quietly, wiping away at another persistent trickle of blood. "The old dog's been put down. That's not me anymore. You changed, I changed." He paused only to move another step closer and to swipe a hand across his stubbornly seeping brow.

"But I still want that answer, Gibbs. I don't care how long it takes, I want that explanation."

With a still heaving chest and clenched fists, the older of the two had to fight hard to keep his hands to himself. He felt the blood drying into his face, and felt a savage urge to draw a fresh supply from his former right hand. The familiar rage that surged, spawned and coursed through him every time he laid eyes on Tony danced within him, taunting him. He was weary from it, but consumed by it, and knowledgeable enough of it to know certain things.

The main such thing being that if the newly appointed fed didn't leave, he would strangle him.

"You think I give a shit about what you _want,_ DiNozzo? You think I lay awake at night wondering about your likes, and dislikes, your little hopes and your whiney dreams?" He shot a scathing look at the man. "You're still the same screw up from Baltimore aren't you?" Taking a step back, he took in Tony's subtly expensive clothing and let out a humourless laugh. "Still the confused little rich boy, trying to make it on his own, but desperately needing a _father figure."_

His second laugh was downright bone chilling. The eerie chuckle, combined with the most damaging and scornful of words tore through Tony like a two tonne truck. It was only his sheer shock that protected him from feeling the words with an acuity that would show on his face. His complexion paled, but he remained impressively expressionless in the wake of the unprecedented vitriol.

"Well, guess what DiNozzo? I'm tired of wiping your ass. I'm tired of stepping in for your waste of space father, though…to be fair, I gotta say, the man was dealt a harsh hand with you. So, no…I don't give a shit about what you want. And you sure as shit ain't gonna come into my house and start throwing around your prepubescent demands like I owe you a damned thing. How's that for an explanation?" He pointed to the staircase yet again. "Now, get yourself and your pathetic questions and get the hell out of my house. And you can forget about the three weeks' notice. I don't need a four year old with abandonment issues on my team for another fucking second."

With that, he turned his back yet again on a stunned Tony, breathing heavily over his sanding bench. The younger man was reeling in his wake. For all the physical blows that had been traded in the once sanctuary like basement, the words that had just come out of his former boss' mouth were by far the most deadly. Opening his mouth, he found it caked in a dryness that seemed to almost suffocate him. He had trusted this man, told him things over the years that no one else in the earthly realm knew. He had turned to him in his darkest hours, and this…after all that time, was the man's true opinion of him.

An inconvenience.

Something to be pitied in the interim, but eventually to be outgrown.

Before he could really process the words that had been hurled at him like the most poisonous of venoms, a primal anger triggered in the deepest corners of his gut. A protective instinct. The desire to wound has he had been wounded, to retaliate, to strike back. To break free of the decade long habit of holding his tongue, to lash out. To expel some of the pain that was circulating through his entire being with a rover flow force. His voice was unrecognisable to him, velvety, and dripping with scorn.

"Does that mean you're done pretending Abby is actually Kelly, then?"

The sanding paper fell to the floor with an almost dismal flutter. Turning around with a slowness that mirrored that of the most deadly predators, Gibbs pivoted to face his protégée once more. He saw the rage, the rage for him, in those eyes and found himself oddly, and savagely cheered. "What did you just say?" he asked with a coldness that once upon a time would have had Tony shaking where he stood. "What did _you_ just say to _me?"_

Instead of shaking where he stood, Tony raised a deliberately taunting and unaffected brow.

"I asked, given that you're done at playing the father figure role and all, if you're done with pretending that your precious Abigail Sciuto is some weird, long lost version of Kelly Gibbs? Because…I gotta say, it's unlikely any daughter raised by a delight like you would ever stick around long enough to know you when you're old in the tooth and rotting away your liver in your hellhole of a basement every night." He paused to offer a similar emotionless laugh that Gibbs had produced. "Do you think that's why Ziva really left? She was tired of being your backup Kelly? The one who wasn't quite Abby, but would do if push came to shove? I wonder how long Tim will stick around?"

He chuckled another dark chuckle.

"Guess everyone leaves you in the end, don't they?"

A red mist was descending over Gibbs' eyes as he took a step closer to his antagonist, so that they were chest to chest. Placing a deliberate finger on the most vulnerable part of Tony's windpipe, he pressed down hard. "Don't you ever," he said slowly, deeply and enunciating every last syllable, "Mention my daughter, ever again. I ever hear your worthless mouth saying her name again, and I'll rip your goddamned throat out. Leave. Leave now, and don't let me see your face around anywhere, at any time. Not at the Navy Yard and definitely not within a hundred meters of my house."

Removing his finger, he used it to once again point at the exit.

"Leave now, while you can still walk. And keep walking, because you and I? We're done."

Tony stared straight ahead and shook his head. "You're pathetic, you know that? Ex wives coming out of the seams of this place, a bottle of bourbon to keep you warm at night and you're telling me you have the luxury of throwing people who would have died for you, out in the trash?" He took a step back and found all emotion draining from him like a deranged sand timer. "You're right, Gibbs, you don't owe me an explanation, and really…I guess I don't want one. I guess…you've got the picture down…we are done."

He smiled tightly, more to himself than anything, before looking his long term, turned former boss in the eye.

"But I think we've been done for a long time."

He took another step back and another step closer to the stairs, before looking back at a silently watching Gibbs with something indecipherable in his eyes.

"The saddest thing is that you're going to die alone, Gibbs. And it didn't have to be that way. You made it that way. You might think I'm worthless, but I would have done anything for you. Tim would have too, but you'll start on him when I'm out of the picture, won't you? He'll be the new me, the new whipping boy. But the problem with that is, Abby's got a soft spot for McGee like she doesn't have for anyone else. They might not be together, but those two will always have something deep."

He looked at Gibbs with that…look, once more and shook his head.

"He'll go, she'll go…and you'll be alone. Bishop might stick around for a while, but you'll find some way to push her away until it's just you. Just you, that bottle, another boat and a long wait until death. You're a self fulfilling prophecy Gibbs. And it's tragic. But what I've realised tonight is that it's not my problem anymore. I'm not going to wind up like you. I'm going to get out from under you, and your shadow and not feel a second's guilt for it. So, you're right. An explanation as to why you came back with a hatred for me and me alone isn't going to change things."

He took another step towards the stairs, placing a hand on the ancient rail.

"Because even if you were man enough to tell me why, even if you had the balls to say you were wrong or that you were sorry, it would never be enough. In a sort of sick way…you showing me how worthless you think I am has shown me how much worth I actually have. I don't have to live and die as your sidekick, because I'm better than that. I ran your team and I ran it well. I can do the things you do, and I can do it without treating people like shit."

He placed one foot on the creaking bottom step and took in a deep breath.

"I won't say it's been a pleasure, Agent Gibbs, but it has been an education. You probably won't believe this, but that job over in Vice? It's as team lead. My own team. Like the one I turned down all those years ago when Jenny offered me the Rota gig. The one I turned down to make sure you were well, to make sure you were healthy. I don't regret that decision. Because it let me stay on your team longer, which, like I said…was an education."

He climbed another three steps, so that he was looking down upon the man he had once looked up to.

"An education in the right and wrong way to do things. An education in the right and wrong way to treat your colleagues, your friends, your family…" He climbed another step. "You taught me all the wrong ways Gibbs, but it let me see all the right ways." Shrugging, he advanced up the staircase until he stood outside the door, looking down at Gibbs, who stared straight back with a twitching jaw.

Pulling open the door, sending light streaming into the basement, he looked around the room that had become so familiar over the last thirteen years. Everything was the same in a way that seemed to mock the seismic shift that had occurred within its confines. Looking at the spot where Gibbs had once taught him how to make hand crafted toys for hospitalised children at Christmas, Tony realised the enormity of the full circle they had travelled. As he stepped through the door, he glanced down at his former boss, mentor and friend and found words failed him, because his eyes were rooted to a realisation as he closed the door with a gentle snap, obscuring both man and spot from view.

For both man and spot were now thoroughly dampened with a congealing mixture of both their blood.

…

TBC

A/N: Ok, as usual, I don't think I can wrap this story up in as many chapters as I'd envisaged. Probably be a bit longer! There's something oddly fascinating about writing a completely different approach to the Tony/Gibbs relationship that I'm used to. Guess there's a long and winding road ahead for our two faves! Another gentle reminder, this is not going to stay angsty forever, there's an ending in mind. I'm pretty nervous about this fic because, like I said, it's far from my usual take, so please let me know what you think and if you want to see it progress into a longer fic?

(Just wanna grab this opportunity to say thanks to "Fan," who is a great support through guest reviews. I can't message you, so thanks! I really appreciate your taking the time to leave feedback and I'm glad you're enjoying my stories!)

_Inks

…...


	4. Collision Course of Cooperation

"Agent DiNozzo, how's your back? I'm sorry I gave you such a rough time out on the court yesterday. I forget our age difference." Grinning good-naturedly as he strolled through the entrance to the DC Vice department, the older man accepted the file offered to him by his teasing second in command. "It's been four months, and you've knocked me down what, once?" he shot back with a grin, "And just so we're clear, I let you children win. It's good for team spirit, it's a well known fact that I excel at anything to do with a ball."

Agent Harry Murphy merely shook his head with unbelieving eyes.

"Sure thing, Boss."

He instantly corrected himself. Their new team lead had a very certain and curious disdain for being addressed by the common law enforcement colloquial. "I mean sure thing, sir." Rolling his eyes and brushing off the moment, Tony scanned the file in his hands as they made their way to the upper offices. "Where did you get this?" he queried, impressed by what he held. Shrugging, Harry stepped out of the way to allow Tony into the elevator first. "I know a guy who needed a gang run off from his corner store in that area a year or so back. He owes me a favour, I called it in."

Silence lapsed in the elevator as Tony nodded and continued to read. His crisp white shirt crinkled as he drank his morning coffee deeply. A profound frown line gradually appeared as he progressed through the file, unnoticed by his senior agent who was busily rooting through the remaining files he held. "Murphy," Tony murmured as they stepped out onto their floor, "How sure are you about this guy? You convinced he's solid?"

Side stepping an oncoming mail cart, Harry nodded confidently. "A hundred percent. He has no reason to lie. I often drop back to make sure there's no retaliation from that gang or any new ones muscling in. Why do you ask?" Tony's frown line increased as he maintained his aura of nonchalance. "Nothing, it's just by his version of things, there's a significant naval connection at the top rung of this prostitution ring?"

Nodding once more, Murphy held the door to their team's branch of the communal offices with a raised brow. "Yes sir, he's convinced that high ranking naval officers are using their power to both traffic and exploit these women. His store is the main liquor outlet for docking sailors, so naturally he would see all the comings and goings. Thought it was a pretty handy break in the case, what with your connections to NCIS and all. Saves us handing over the case entirely. Orders from above are that we're to open a joint investigation with them if the case progresses any further down the naval route." He gestured towards a towering stack of files on Tony's desk as he threw himself behind his own. "The memo's there somewhere, Grace brought it down from the director's office a while ago."

Sticking his head into his own files as he finished his explanation and reading at the pace that always made Tony feel dizzy, he didn't notice the tight quality that passed across his boss' face at his words. Sitting down slowly, Tony rooted through the monstrous pile of paperwork, until he found the orange sheet that signalled an internal communication. Reading his new director's now familiar hand, he felt his stomach sink to an impossible low. Before he could re-read the straight forward memo for the fourth time, Agent Grace Breslin meandered into view, to land in front of him.

"Morning Boss."

She instantly corrected herself, causing the Vice leader a bout of déjà vu. "I mean, morning sir," she stammered. Tony barely suppressed a roll of his eyes. Four months, it had been four months, how hard could it be to get one simple detail right? He pushed back that eye roll by firmly reminding himself that taking unrelated issues out on his team was something he had sworn not to do. Especially with a team member who could be as intermittently nervous as Grace. Smiling warmly, but professionally, he raised a questioning brow. "Morning Breslin, what have you got for me?"

She instantly relaxed somewhat at his smile.

"I ran down those backgrounds you wanted. Three main persons of interest. Nothing seemed to link them together in the present, so I dug into their past. They were all dishonourably discharged from the Navy within four years of each other. From what I can tell, they never served aboard the same boat, but," she placed a bulky file upon the desk, "They all had the same commanding officer at one point or another during their service."

"Ship," Tony corrected almost absentmindedly as he leafed through the file, "Don't ever let a sailor hear you call their ship a boat Breslin, trust me, it's not pretty." He frowned in thought as she murmured her quiet assent. "Each served exactly two years under this CO, before being transferred and subsequently discharged dishonourably six to seven months later…with no record as to the reason?" Nodding, Grace indicated to the back of the file. "The discharge orders are there, but redacted sir. Whatever it was that led to those sailor's dismissal, the powers that be do not want it to be easily accessible. I've made calls, but to be honest I don't hold out much hope. You know how cagey the Navy can be."

Tony swallowed a snort.

That was quite the understatement.

He felt a coating of misery line his lower stomach. Their case had taken tentative steps before a downright plunge into Navy territory in the space of five minutes. There was only one hope for him. The MCRT that he had left didn't deal with matters of prostitution unless there was some kind of dead body along the way. Mercifully, there was at present, no such corpse. He could easily juggle this with a lower team, he had pretty good relations with at least three of them. But they weren't there yet, there will still other and beautifully civilian leads to be explored.

"Murphy," he instructed, "Get your butt over here a second." Ambling over Harry landed himself beside Grace and twinkled down at her. "You look nice today Breslin, did you manage to both capture _and_ eat a small child last night?" Eyes narrowing, the young woman opened her mouth to retaliate, before Tony's throat clearing stopped the pair of them. They had no way of knowing that the inability of their new boss to speak for a moment wasn't irritation, but a bout of hard hitting nostalgia. Murphy and Breslin reminded Tony strongly, and painfully of a younger he and Ziva. Pushing away that frequent comparison, he shot Murphy a quick reproving look before holding up a stack of photos.

"These are the surveillance shots from the main brothel from last week. I know we wrote them off as a dead end, but if there is a Naval connection to this ring, there should be a pattern of repeated faces in keeping with the docking patterns of ships coming to port. Go through them, and look for the CO in this file." Handing both off to Murphy, who nodded immediately and returned to his desk, Tony turned to Grace. "Keep digging into those discharge backgrounds, but run down the possibility of the lower east street gang involvement we spitballed. The whole thing seems way too organised for street gang involvement, but you never know."

She nodded and drifted to her desk without another word.

Looking around the spacious office layout, Tony frowned and checked his watch. "Where is Lakes?" he demanded at large, "It's past nine thirty." Looking over at Murphy, who immediately looked away, Tony glanced at Breslin who was suddenly engrossed in her contacts list. Sighing, Tony was about to fish out his cell when the bane of all banes strolled into the office, complete with morning coffee and a smile. "Morning," Agent Kevin Lakes greeted breezily, settling himself behind his desk, completing the Vice team in total. "Sorry I'm late guys, the traffic downtown was murder this morning."

Tony was rapidly learning that the traffic downtown was murder every single morning.

Before he could open his mouth to express his astonishment that the traffic system was once again in chaos, Grace slammed her desk phone so hard he jerked in his seat. "What's up?" he instantly asked, focussing his attention on her, as did Lakes and Murphy. Scowling at the phone as if it had personally wronged her and her entire family, Breslin sighed. "There's a dead sailor at the second largest brothel, the one we were planning on staking out this week. Called in over two hours ago. NCIS major response is already on scene, we just got a courtesy call." She looked at Tony with angry eyes and he already knew what she was going to say.

"They're taking over our case, sir."

Silence reigned for a moment as Murphy and Lakes exchanged looks of irritation, mirrored by Grace. They were used to being usurped half way and even three quarters of a way through an investigation, but it still stung. Sighing, Lakes recovered first. "Well, it's not the first time we've been pushed out of the action," he muttered, "But then again, with the way this case was going, it was probably just a matter of time. Whatever is going on in that prostitution ring, it's not being governed on dry land. Let the Navy boy's have at it."

Tony's eyes slowly swivelled towards his junior agent.

"Up," he commanded quietly, before jerking his head at Grace and Harry. "You two as well, and listen up. We have put in the ground work on this case. Since I've been here, this case has been our main priority. That's four months of work, four months of man power and you just want to roll over and give it away? Are you kidding me?"

All three agents exchanged looks as they slowly rose.

"Uhh…sir, we don't really have any choice in the matter," Murphy hedged reasonably, "I mean, it's their jurisdiction now, fair and square. We don't have the authority to hold onto the investigation when a homicide falls directly into another agencies territory. If we play our cards right, we might be able to hold onto that joint investigation I was telling you about earlier. But…" he looked around the room again before finding his train of thought, "Uhh…why are we standing again?"

Tony stared for a moment before rooting in his desk for his gun.

"Because we need to be standing, Murphy. You can't keep your hat in the ring if you're sitting down and looking at it." Throwing his coffee into the bin, he threw his head towards the door. "Move it people. Lakes, you're driving. Oh, and try and avoid the traffic this time would you? Breslin and Murphy, when you get to the scene, don't approach. That goes for you too Lake. I just want you three to be within spitting distance of the scene. No badges, no nothing. Don't draw attention to yourselves and stay in the car, ok?"

The three younger agents stared.

"Where are you going then?" Lakes demanded, definitely the most confident of the trio. Shrugging into his suit jacket, Tony smiled grimly. "I'm going to get authorisation for you three to get out of the car I'm telling you to stay in." Brushing past the astonished looking agents, he hovered in the doorway for just a second. "Look, just trust me, alright? Do as I say and I'll be with you when I can. Remember, keep clear from the scene. Stay in the car and observe and report, do not engage with anyone and that's an order."

Before they could even gather their jaws up off the floor, he was gone.

"What the hell was that about?"

Shaking their heads slowly at Murphy's incredulous question, Grace and Kevin hoisted their gear bags over their shoulders and silently led the way to the garage, wondering all the while just what in the hell had gotten into their new leader. As they clambered into their car, Tony was already weaving through dense traffic with a grim jaw line. What he was about to do, he did not relish. In fact the thoughts of it were enough to spill a viscous pot of nausea into his gut. But the case demanded it, and if there was one thing he would not do, it was jeopardising his first case because of personal bullshit. With a heavy heart and a half an hour later, he was swinging into a painfully familiar building's car lot.

Stepping out, aware of being against the clock, he wasted no time in negotiating his way through several security checks. He kept his head bowed as he walked, not in the least interested in an impromptu reunion with hallway lurkers. Using his badge and his past with impunity, he sped through the various hold ups along the way. He was being rude, and he knew it, but he also didn't really care. He needed to get in and out as fast as humanly possible. Before long, he was in the all too familiar holding area. Arguing with a new assistant was an obstacle he should have foreseen, but all in all, he wasn't doing too badly.

As the miffed twenty-something dialled a line reluctantly, he waited impatiently. Murmuring so lowly and so fast that he couldn't understand what she was saying, the assistant eventually rung off. Pointing at the door to which she guarded, she raised an unimpressed brow. "He will see you. Five minutes, and no more. He is a busy man. And he does have other, _scheduled,_ appointments." Nodding brusquely, Tony stepped towards the familiar door and rapped politely. A moments silence preceded the even more familiar "enter."

Stepping in, he felt the full weight of times past press upon him. Forcing himself not to see the ghost of Jenny anywhere, he focussed his gaze straight ahead, and looked nowhere else in the opulent room. Rising, Leon Vance raised a brow and offered a hand in tandem. Shaking the hand, Tony knew he was best cutting to the chase. "Apologies for just turning up like this Director," he smiled, "But I have a case to discuss with you." Silence dabbled unchecked for a moment, as the agency lead considered his ex-employees introduction. "I'm afraid however important your case may be to you, Agent DiNozzo, I have a conference to attend for which I am already late. I know of the case you hold however, and I've therefore already authorised a joint investigation between NCIS and Vice."

Tony felt surprise seep through him, but before he could say anything, or ask the all important favour, there came a sharp rap at the door. Heart sinking with the weight of a hundred battle ships, Tony's eyes swivelled to that door. "Director," he blurted, "I had a favour to ask-"

Leon held up a silencing hand.

"I do not have the time or luxury of favours right now, Tony. I'm sorry, but that is the way it is and I'm sure you aware I do not have to allow this joint effort. Please do not make me regret my decision nor bring the ethic of this agency or yours into disaccord." His silencing hand remained in place as he turned to the door and issued another permit to enter. It creaked open at his words, and it took all of Tony's professionalism to keep his eye contact up and his face impassive. Standing in the broad doorway, the new entrant raised a very slow brow as he appraised the occupants of the office, before swiftly and deliberately averting his gaze from one of them.

"You rang, Leon?"

Gathering up his belongings with an air of impatience, the Director sighed at the habitual impertinence. He stared at the two men for a moment, both of whose eyes were fixated upon him, before turning his attention to a growingly enraged marine. He knew what he was doing was not without substantial risk, but he would not deviate from the norms of interagency cooperation. Not for Gibbs, and not for anyone. He threw his hand in Tony's direction and adopted a tone that brooked no argument.

"Meet your temporary partner, Agent Gibbs. I hope you two will be very happy together."

And then he was gone, the door swinging behind him, leaving the two men who would rather be anywhere else in the world behind without a second glance.

Alone.

…

A/N: I know this focussed a little more on Tony and his new role, but because I'm expanding this fic more than I thought I would, his new job and team are important. This story isn't going to see Tony going back to his old job. The next chapter will refocus on the Tony/Gibbs arc. Just wanna say a huge thanks for the support on this story, I'm really enjoying writing it as it's so different to my norm. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.

_Inks

…..


	5. Team Gibbs or Team DiNozzo?

The creeping awkwardness spread like toxic smog. Any casual bystander would never believe the silence that soaked into the walls of the Director's office surrounded men who had already shared a lifetime. There was no eye contact, each occupant staring religiously ahead, jaws taut and rigid. It was Gibbs who eventually broke the sickly silence. His voice was low, and infused with an overwhelming dose of lingering contempt. He turned his back on his emancipated protégée, thrust his hands into his pockets and spoke directly to the expansive windows. His words were the first to be spoken between the two in four months.

"Didn't take you long to come running back then."

Tony stared silently as he drank in the opening words of the inevitable meeting. He had known deep down that the joint investigation would be viewed in this manner by Gibbs. When in truth, it was the last thing he wanted to do and NCIS was definitely the last place he wanted to be. But the job was the job, and he wasn't about to have his teams' right to the case trampled on because of personal…differences. "I'm not back," he replied simply, keeping his tone deliberately aloof, "But this case is as much ours as it is yours. I'm just making sure that my team-"

Gibbs' snort of disdain cut him short, as he continued to speak to the windows at large.

" _Your_ _team?"_ he echoed, shaking his head in a twisted amusement, "I've heard it all now."

Tony paused and digested. He waited for the tidal wave of anger he had experienced in the basement those four months ago to rise at the mocking words. But it didn't. He felt nothing. There was something oddly liberating about his lack of response as he pressed on . "I'm just making sure that my team are as involved as we have the right to be. You are free to handle the navy leads in the case of course, but the Vice leads remain ours. Any resulting collars from a Vice lead and legwork, are also ours."

Gibbs slowly turned at his former second's comments and finally looked him in the eye. His blue gaze burned with scorn. Tony returned the stare with a glacial indifference that had Jenny still been present in the office where they stood, it would have brought a tear to her eye. "That's what you've become, is it?" the elder of the two murmured dangerously, "A bean counter? A glory hunter?" He shook his head. "Four months out of this place and you've already turned into every other ladder climber in this hellhole of a city." He grunted lowly in his throat with contempt before shrugging to himself. "Least you're not a reflection on me anymore. Small mercies and all that."

Tony raised a brow, but consciously avoided the bait.

"I'm glad you've found the concept of mercy in your life, Agent Gibbs," he murmured, "Now, my team are at on scene at the moment. I've held them off until I got the green light from Vance, but I'm going to join them now and conduct our own investigation. If we find anything of relevance forensically, I'll be sure and send it to Abby. It'll just be faster that way, for both teams. I will do my best to ensure that we have a little contact as possible, but the job still has to come first." He hesitated for just a moment, before offering a cursory and dismissing nod of his head. Starting towards the door, he was stopped in his tracks as he neared the handle.

"No."

Closing his eyes briefly and wearily, Tony pivoted on the spot and raised a brow in Gibbs' direction.

"No?"

Jaw clenched tightly, Gibbs nodded. "No," he repeated. "I can't stop this joke of a joint investigation, but I'll be damned if you and your ah… _dream team,_ are going to use NCIS resources. You use your own lab, and your own people. Abby is off limits. So are Ducky and Palmer. You want something done, then you get it done yourself."

He paused to arch a condescending brow. "Shouldn't be hard, seeing as you're so independent now and all. And by the by, you might have started this investigation, but a dead body trumps your international prostitution ring. Not that you've even proved one exists to my satisfaction. So joint investigation or not, this is my lead. You will stay out of my damned way and work with what I give you, when I give it to you. Do you think you can follow all that, or should I write it down?"

The indifference Tony had clung to was rapidly beginning to fade as Gibbs' words were straining to batter the walls of his defence. He felt his own teeth come together painfully as the patronising tone washed over him with a cold splash. "I don't think you understand, Agent Gibbs," he ground out lowly, "I do not work for you anymore. Therefore, I do not take orders from you anymore. You however, continue to take orders from Director Vance, and I think he made it quite clear what those were. Do you think you can follow that, or should I draw you some kind of picture?"

Gibbs took one step closer, his eyes flashing dangerously.

"I let you walk out of my house on two unbroken legs the last time you spoke to me like that. Keep in mind that I might not be in such a generous mood today."

Tony took one step closer, his hackles instantly rising, no matter how hard he tried to contain them.

"The days of me swallowing your little threats and your snide comments are over," he hissed, "You understand me? They're over. I will lead my team on this case in my own way, and you yours. The idea of being within a hundred feet of you makes my stomach turn, but for the sake of the case, I'll do it. If you cannot do the same, then maybe… take a little holiday. Drink a little bourbon, build a little boat. By the time you stumble back here, the case will be done and I'll be gone. Everyone wins."

He felt a savage spark of pleasure as he saw his words hit home. His head was beginning to swim with the sudden surge of chemicals seeping from his brain. This was not how he intended the inevitable meeting after the basement showdown going. He had planned on remaining indifferent and aloof. He had scripted himself as being the professional of the two. But Gibbs' words had gotten under his skin like a ravenous tick. His disparaging comments about his team had triggered a dormant rage in him. A rage he still carried for Gibbs that he had briefly, and in hindsight foolishly, thought he was clear of.

"You think you can lead a team?" the elder of the two scoffed, breaking into his thoughts. "You really think you can be an agent in charge?" He smirked with such arrogance that Tony felt his fists twitch longingly at his waist. "News flash, Agent DiNozzo…overgrown frat boys from Ohio State? They generally don't get very far in this game. Do yourself a favour and don't get your hopes up for any big promotions. Whatever Mickey Mouse team you got over at Vice, that's it for you. That's as high as you go. A glorified narcotics detective." He shot a look of such ridicule at his former second that the walls seemed to vibrate with projectile mirth. "So don't you come in here and talk to _me_ about how I lead _my_ team."

The red mist was descending over Tony's eyes.

"You think you lead your team?" he spat, "You think you've _ever_ lead your _team?_ Let me tell you something Agent Gibbs, you don't have a _team._ You have a group of people who you threaten, put down and trample on with your last century shoes until they submit. You mistake respect for fear and tyranny for leadership." He smiled a cold smile. "How are things going with McGee by the way? Have you broken him in yet? You got him just how you want him? You don't want to wait too long you know, otherwise he might just get to see a glimpse of his own worth. And then he'll run a hundred fucking miles away from this place. And you."

He let out a humourless laugh, his eyes never leaving Gibbs'.

"You still a betting man?"

He chuckled eerily once more at the elder man's obvious confusion.

"What am I saying? Of course you are. Drinking and gambling are the same pleasure centres in the brain, right? Well, let's have a little flutter, Agent Gibbs. I wager you a hundred dollars that this time next year, you'll be all alone in your bullpen. Hell, I'll be generous and give you a year and a half. Bishop's still got some sweetness in her, you'll need time to drive that out of her, and drive her away."

He paused for a moment, before shrugging slightly. "Anyhow, time is ticking and whether you want to admit it or not, we do have a case." He threw his head towards the door. "Unless you have any more last words, I'll be on my way. I don't know how you do things around here now, maybe you're too fragile…but if not, I guess I'll see you at the scene." He managed to cross the office entirely and rest his hand on the door handle before Gibbs spoke again. There was a definite tinge of something indecipherable in the older man's voice. It wasn't anger or contempt, it wasn't indifference or loathing. It was more like…sadness.

"Make sure you have your ID ready to show the team. You walked out on them too. They might not remember what you look like, after nearly half a year with not a word."

Tony turned once more, but this time there was no anger in his tone when he spoke.

"Walked out on?" he echoed slowly. "I didn't walk out on anyone, Agent Gibbs. I was the one who was walked out on. By you. You walked out on me, not the other way around. As for the team…they shouldn't have any trouble in recognising me. I've been having lunch with Tim, Abbs and Bishop…Ducky and Palmer too. Every week without fail."

He opened the door and stepped into the oddly bright hallway, and looked back for a final time. Gibbs was wearing a completely incomprehensible look as Tony closed the door on both him and his closing words.

"Didn't you know?"

…..

A/N: Gentle reminder, there's an ending in mind for this. It's not going to be a constant row between the two, but I think Tony deserves his chance to vent.

Thoughts?

Till next time.

_Inks

….


	6. The Scene

Tony slipped out of his car and cast a trained eye over the scene in front of him. He could see the NCIS van in the distance. Deciding to regroup with his own team before meeting their old counterpart, he ambled towards their vehicle. Rapping on the window and putting an effective end to the blazing row that was raging between Breslin and Murphy, he stepped back to allow them to clamber out. Stretching loudly, Lakes turned a tortured gaze in Tony's direction.

"We've been camped out here for at least five hours."

Rolling his eyes, Tony ignored the complaint and worked quickly in his mind. "Ok, we're now officially on a joint op here with NCIS. This is a courtesy for them; they don't have to allow it so tread carefully. The team on scene is my old unit, so there's a little leeway to work with. Forensics will run through NCIS, if you receive any resistance on that, you let me know straight away. Liaise with them, but run everything through me first."

He paused for breath.

"Lakes. I want you on prints, Breslin on photos and Murphy…do your best with witness statements. This area isn't known for cooperation with anything even smelling of law, but smile that smile of yours and try and bring something back." He ran a hand through his hair as he foresaw the mammoth obstacles that could potentially spring up in their path and not for the first time wished he'd left well enough alone. The three stared at him for a moment, clearly aware of his unusually charged vibe, before nodding in synchronisation and splitting up. Staying where he was for a moment, Tony took a deep breath. He could see Tim in the distance, crouched low over a covered corpse, in deep conversation with Ducky. Bishop's blonde hair bobbed and weaved in the distance, as she diligently dusted for prints. Palmer weaved about in the distance.

He took another breath.

He'd made the effort to stay close with the rest of Team Gibbs, and it was an effort that was returned tenfold. However, he hadn't known that those efforts had remained a secret from Gibbs, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. Logically, he sensed that they had kept the information to themselves in order to keep the peace. He'd never ask them to choose sides, or anything equally childish, so he had no problem with that being their reasoning. However, the slightly hurt side of him provided a different explanation. Were they ashamed of their continued association with him? Just like Gibbs was? Were they just too kind to sever ties with him, just like their leader had?

He shook his head at himself with a forced firmness.

He was being ridiculous.

Yet he couldn't quite dissuade himself of the nervousness in his stomach. He had continued to be a part of his old team's lives, in a personal capacity. This would be his first foray into dealing with them in his professional capacity. Taking in a deep breath, he realised the advantage in meeting with them before Gibbs came on scene. His team were moving closer to Tim and Bishop and he instinctively knew they would be better received of the bat of his introductions. Ducky and Palmer were too far ahead to notice him as he walked swiftly onto the scene, but McGee and Ellie instantly straightened up at the familiar figures approach.

"Hey guys," Tony said simply, with a small, but genuine smile. "Looks like my team and I are gonna be gate crashing for a bit, if that's ok?"

Silence greeted his words, as the two NCIS agents exchanged expressionless glances. They instantly pieced together the pieces of the Naval puzzle and saw how they slid snugly into the Vice jigsaw.

A second later, a pair of toothy grins answered him.

"Of course," Tim agreed with a small laugh, "If you think you can keep up that is. Wouldn't want to show you up in front of your new team now, would we?" Ellie's laughter in response to McGee's gentle needling instantly put Tony at ease as he shook his head with a grin. "Just because you're Very Special Agent Timothy McGee now, doesn't mean I can't still knock you on your ass," he quipped, before turning to Ellie. "Similar sentiments to you, my dear Bishop."

Both merely rolled their eyes at him, but both experienced the same, sharp pang in their guts.

They missed him.

They couldn't remember the last time they had laughed so easily in the field.

Bishop opened her mouth to retort when the loud crunching of wheels on gravel drew away her attention. The looks on their faces as they looked behind Tony at the approaching vehicle left the visiting agent in no confusion as to who was arriving. He closed his eyes as the engine cut off and looked directly at McGee and Bishop, the amusement fast fading from his eyes. "Go," he urged quietly, "I'm not here to cause any trouble. You guys can ignore me when he's here, I understand." He thrust a chin over their heads. "Go on, you don't need the hassle of being seen to consort with me."

The two stared at him for a moment, decidedly unused to the seriousness of his tone.

"Get out of it," Tim eventually ground out, in an undercurrent that caused Tony's eyes to widen. "I'm not about to be told that I can't talk to you, not by Gibbs or by anyone." A catch in DiNozzo's throat that he would rather die than admit manifested at his once upon a time probie's words. Not knowing what to say, he nodded quietly, unaware that everything he wanted to say was splashed in his eyes. Turning to Bishop in an attempt to force her at least to heed his warning, she shook her head as a car door opened in the background. "What he said," she muttered firmly, throwing her gaze in McGee's direction. "I don't care what abbreviation you wear on your field kit these days, you're still one of us."

The catch in Tony's throat instantly grew to golf ball proportions.

He had just swallowed it down, when the familiar footsteps appeared right behind him. Before passing right by him. Blowing past his once most trusted colleague and friend, Gibbs uncerimonously stood between Tony and his two agents. Blinking as the back of his old boss utterly obstructed his view, DiNozzo barely suppressed a sigh. "You two," Gibbs growled, his back vibrating with clear ire. "You're not being paid to stand around and chit chat with outsiders. Move it. I want prints, photos and statements in my hands in the next thirty god damned minutes, or you'll regret it."

A sticky moment instantly ensued.

Tony was battling with himself. Hearing the disparaging way in which Gibbs spoke to McGee and Ellie set his teeth on edge. And yet, when he had been on the team, it had never bothered him. Hearing it without the veil of inclusion, it sounded so damned aggressive he felt his fists ball at his sides. There was just no need for it. No matter how much even Lakes drove him crazy, he always spoke to him like he was a frigging human being, not a piece of road kill. Knowing it wasn't his place to interfere, but desperately wanting to, he was stuck in a painful case of inaction.

McGee and Bishop, for their part, were instantly on edge.

The term "outsiders" rang around each of their brains with garish impunity.

Taking a deep breath, Tim threw a subtle look in Ellie's direction, as they both turned on their heel. Biting his tongue was getting harder every day for McGee, and he nearly managed it in the current instance, until he saw the satisfied expression cross Gibbs' face at their compliance. Ensuring Ellie was shielded by his back, he didn't hide the disgust from his own face as he faced his boss with dignified courage.

"You should know that as far as we're concerned, Tony will never be an outsider, Gibbs."

With that, he turned fully and walked swiftly away with Bishop at his side. Before his former boss could turn around, the visiting agent quickly pulled his jaw back off the floor. It hit him in that moment just how very much McGee had come into his own over the years. A burning sensation of pride swept through him, which was quickly replaced by a familiar pained confusion. Tim was to him, what he had been to Gibbs. In a million lifetimes he could never imagine turning on McGee like he had been turned on. The pain that he kept at bay for so long was lapping him now, before increasing from lapping to dogging as Gibbs slowly turned to face him.

Before either of them could say a word, Lakes, Breslin and Murphy suddenly melted to Tony's side. "Uhh, Tony?" Grace began hesitantly, feeling a brick wall of animosity between her own boss and whom she correctly garnered to be Tony's former superior. "We're having trouble getting authorisation for search warrants for the other brothels. The scene here seems to be pretty well tied up, and if we're sharing forensics, we thought it would be more efficient to go and check the other properties?"

Jerking out of his reverie, Tony nodded at the suggestion but before he could verbalise it, he was interrupted.

"There will be no sharing of forensics. The samples already collected are NCIS property, and the analysis of such will not be shared with outside agencies. Understand lady?"

The tone that was used and the expression that crossed every members of his team's face in response, set Tony's blood alight. Controlling himself with difficulty, he breathed in subtly. "That's a good idea, Breslin," he praised softly, "you and Lakes go and check out the other brothels for linking evidence. Put some more pressure on legal, I'll put a call in soon to speed things along. Murphy and I will finish up here."

The two assigned agent's stared at him silently for a moment.

Lakes, casting an unimpressed look in Gibbs' direction, raised a brow. "You sure, Tony? I can stay…if you need."

All the irritation he had ever felt with the agent who most reminded Tony of a younger version of himself melted away. "I'm sure," he smiled calmly, "if you leave now, you won't get too bogged down in traffic. Report back to me in an hour if you're still having a trouble with that warrant. With a body attached to the case, it shouldn't be too much of a hold up. Go on, Murphy and I will meet you two back at the office."

Grace and Lakes nodded in tandem, before departing for the car. Training an eye on Murphy, Tony threw his gaze in the direction of the uncomfortably crowded scene. "Carry on as you were," he commanded quietly, "I'll give you a hand in a minute." It was immediately clear that his remaining agent had the same reservations about his boss being left alone with a thunderous looking NCIS lead. Assuaging those qualms with an expressive look, Tony was relieved with Murphy nodded and departed.

But not before shooting Gibbs a look of instinctive dislike.

Such a look was returned with a resounding force, causing Tony's fists to ball up once more.

As soon as Murphy was out of sight, the forensics war raged once more. "I don't know if I'm using words that are too complicated for that thick skull of yours, DiNozzo, but I'll try once more. You and your little minions are not going to be copied into our forensics investigation. You want something analysed? Then you use your own lazy ass hands and your own toy store facilities to run it. Is that finally making sense to you now?"

Tony raised a thoroughly disdainful brow.

"If you have a problem with shared forensics, as is joint investigation protocol, then you should speak to your director, Agent Gibbs. Until then, Vice will proceed through NCIS lab resources, whatever your personal opinion on the matter. And by the by, you should know…I'm not going to stand for any of your snarling shit being directed towards my team. So keep a civil tongue in that head of yours if you have reason to speak to my people. We clear?"

Gibbs felt a supercilious smirk spread from his lips.

"Your people?" he echoed lightly, "The simple looking ones? The ones that address you as _Tony?_ With that kind of respect on your _team,_ anything I say shouldn't be an issue." He shrugged his shoulders. "Though I guess I can spare them a little kindness. Putting their lives on the line every day under your ahh…leadership, probably takes its toll."

It was with pronounced difficulty that Tony kept his hands firmly to himself. Thrusting them into his pockets for safe keeping, he met Gibbs' gaze with a scorching one of his own.

"You know, they did address me as Boss in the beginning," he retorted coolly, "But something about that term makes me sick to my stomach these days, so I asked them to stop."

Gibbs wasn't fast enough to hide the flinch that crossed his face.

Tony felt that same savage pleasure at his pain that he had experienced in that disastrous basement meeting. Gibbs quickly recovered with a scowl that would sour milk. Looking at his former second with the distaste only he could muster, he shook his head in contempt. It didn't take a body language expert to know that the pair were once again close to blows. So wrapped up in their own controversy were they, that they didn't notice the sudden and decidedly different tinge the haze of voices around them had taken on. Or the raised cacophony of panic that was beginning to ring out.

Gibbs took a deliberate step closer to his antagonist, teeth bared in a snarl.

"You smart mouthed little-"

The gunshot came out of nowhere.

….

A/N: In relation to a guest review about Tony's being called sir: I agree, it's not him, so I've changed it! I just didn't want the team calling him boss, so that seemed the most common second option. But I think them addressing Tony as Tony is very…Tony-ish, so thank you! In relation to another review that pointed out discrepancies in the composition of the Vice team, thank you! The Irish justice system has absolutely no federal element, so I admit to being unfamiliar with the nuances. Basically I just wanted a team for Tony that was similar in size and scope as his former team, and Vice just came to mind after watching some show or other featuring them. I'm just going to leave them as they are for the sake of the story, but I appreciate the differences. Thank you all for your feedback, I so appreciate it! J

TBC

_Inks.

….


	7. What Happened?

The obstruction in his throat was cold, hard and pressingly unyielding. His eyes twitched feebly as he put a mammoth effort into opening them. There was something inorganic in his nose, something that didn't belong. He tried to move his arms, tried to feel something, anything. But he couldn't. There were murmurings around him, but they sounded so far away. A sterile stench of forced cleanliness hung in the air as his brain slowly began to register his new consciousness. He tried as hard as he'd ever tried to come up for air from the dark pool he was drowning in, but he couldn't make it. He got close to the surface, before falling back down again.

He gave in. He gave into the crushing tiredness and the wearied emptiness. He faded back to sleep.

It was hours and hours before his consciousness stirred feebly again, like a timid mouse peeking around a dangerous corner. It was a new day, filled with new murmurings. All the things that were shoved into this throat and nose were still there, pressing down on him. Beeping, shuffling and mumbling thundered around him, oblivious to his slow awakening. No-one knew he was alert; he still couldn't open his eyes. He tried, and he tried, but they wouldn't budge. Everything hurt; he wished he could tell them that. Every part of him that could feel pain, burned. Machines continued to force oxygen into his lungs as he battled to open his eyes, even just a little.

He heard a familiar voice. It was far, far away, but he knew it.

His heart leapt.

He scrabbled desperately for the surface once more, clawing his way to the surface. But he failed, again and again, he failed. His heart began to hammer painfully in his chest as raw panic gripped him. No matter what he did, he couldn't open his eyes. He couldn't move a muscle, twitch an arm, nothing. Tiredness engulfed him, and the familiar voice faded away. He knew he knew the voice, but he couldn't identify its owner. This irritated him, caused him ire. Agitation was the last thing he felt before his drugged mind once again melted into unconsciousness.

Two days had passed when he came up for air once more.

His eyes were more responsive this time; they jumped feebly instead of twitching limply. He tentatively jerked an arm, but it still didn't move. He refocused on his eyes, trying desperately to ignore the cold plastic that was offensively placed within him. His eye lids keened under the pressure he placed upon them, they weren't ready. But he needed to see, he needed to know. He didn't remember much, but he was scared. Something bad had happened, something seriously bad. His mind was too drenched in drugs to think without visual aids. He needed to see, needed to physically view where he was, who was talking.

Their voices were so close; he could almost reach out and touch their owners.

But yet, they were so far away.

Frustration welled up within him.

He refused to give in this time, he refused to go back to sleep. Fatigue crushed him as he pleaded with his eyes to open, begged them to see. The lids fluttered and fell, never fully opening. It was exhausting, but it was progress. He was getting stronger; he could nearly peel the lids back all the way. A silent unseen battle raged as he wrestled with himself. An eternity seemed to pass as he lay immobile, blinded, and desperate. Just as he was about to abandon all hope, his final twitch yielded some fruit.

Some poisonous fruit.

It took everything he had, but he kept his eyes open. Not much, they were more serpentine than human, but they were open nonetheless. His body revolted against the tube in his throat as awareness flooded through him, and he gagged noisily. Silence thundered around the room for a moment, before a cacophony of noise flooded through. Suddenly they were small pinpricks of light being shone fiercely in his eyes, cold hands on his forehead. Struggling with a new vigour, he pulled away from the intrusion, spluttering painfully over the artificial pipe.

His eyes stung with pain as fresh air suddenly sailed down his windpipe.

His breathing was once again his own.

Voices he didn't recognise spoke urgently to him, but he ignored them. His eyes were racking the room, his ears straining for something else. Someone else. The light was removed from his face as his coughing came back under control. His breathing was laboured but measured as he struggled to sit up in the bed, blood suddenly flowing back to his extremities. Hands attempted to hold him down, before giving up, and helping him to sit back. Tubes hung from him at various points in his body as he looked around once more.

Finally, he saw them, and his eyes grew wide.

Abby and Tim stood there, speechless as they gazed down at him. McGee's arm was draped tightly around Abby's shoulder as they watched the doctors melt away from the patient, scribbling furiously on their clipboards. Silence mocked them all for a moment, as words failed both patient and visitors. However, as with all things, it was transitional. Ending with the dry clearing of a throat, words were suddenly croaked around the room. The voice was a shadow of its usual self. It was weak, trembling and croaky.

"What happened?"

The pivotal question had been asked, and it couldn't be ignored. Exchanging worried looks, tinged with pain, Abby and Tim chewed their lips in anxiety. For words to fail Abigail Sciuto was an instant alarm bell for the patient, causing him to scrub agitatedly at his face. He was growing tired once more, and he knew his bout of alertness was coming to an abrupt end. He was running out of time, and he didn't have any answers. He didn't know what happened, or why he was here. All he knew was something had gone wrong, and then all he had experienced was unspeakable pain. The black cloud hovered in the peripherals of his mind, threatening to take him back to sleep at any moment. The dry, wretched cough spluttered through the room once more as he struggled to take breath.

"What happened?"

Tim glanced at Abby, and knew it was too much. Removing his arm slowly, he approached the bedside with a mixture of determination, pain and worry etched into his face. Resting his hands on the metal bars, he filled his lungs with air. The patient needed rest, and he knew the words he was about speak were far from restful. But he knew he had to speak them, knew they had to be heard. For all concerned, they had to be heard. There was something in his eyes that was hard to define in the present, but the patient would later realise it was a burning rage.

"What happened?" Tim murmured, his voice much lower than usual.

The man nodded with as much energy as his drugged figure could allow for.

The look in McGee's eyes would have undoubtedly smouldered cold and spent ashes.

"Let's just say Tony DiNozzo is more of a man than you've ever been, and currently isn't half as lucky as you are, Agent Gibbs."

…

TBC

…...


	8. Choices

Gibbs blinked rapidly as his pulse quickened. Gazing at McGee out of blurry eyes, he shook his head, but quickly stopped when a searing pain shot through his throbbing skull. "What?" he mumbled sluggishly, "What are you talking about? Will you tell me what happened for the love of…" he trailed off, seeing Abby approach the bed further. "Abbs," he rasped, sitting up straighter, "What happened?"

Before she could answer, Tim had interjected angrily.

"Tony took a damned bullet for you, that's what happened."

A cloak of muteness was thrown over the room. Even the machines seemed to beep more quietly in a sort of sombre recognition of the answer given. Gibbs swallowed unnecessarily, aggravating his already red raw throat. The buzzing in his ears was soaring to crescendo pitch, hammering brutishly at his ear drums. He blinked rather gormlessly at his agent, struggling to comprehend. One swift look at Abby's paler than pale face let him know he hadn't misunderstood. Dizziness threatened to overtake him as he opened his mouth slowly, his heart racing, sending his monitoring machines into overdrive.

"He…what?"

Abby whimpered at the sound of the man's voice. It was nothing like its usual gruff and to the point self. It was the same voice he'd used when that liner had blown up, before he'd taken off to Mexico all those years ago. It was the same voice he'd used when they lost Kate, the same one he'd used when they couldn't save Jenny. Tim however, seemed absolutely unconcerned about the change in Gibbs' voice, as his gaze narrowed. He couldn't explain where his sudden anger was stemming from, but he couldn't control it.

He didn't even want to control it.

"I said," he spat, "That Tony, the guy you've treated like shit for the last two years, threw himself in front of a bullet to save your sorry ass." Seeing Gibbs' look of utter confusion served only to send his teeth crunching together in noisy ire. "There were two armed gang runners still on scene, hiding. We didn't find them in our initial sweep, because they were was a concealed hallway behind the plasterboard in the main hall. They couldn't get out, and we couldn't see them. They knew we were going to do a full search, so they had to make a break for it."

He paused as the smell of scorched gunpowder seemed to assail his nostrils with a phantom acidity.

"So they did, when our backs were turned. Tony's man was talking to me, and Bishop, Ducky and Palmer were collecting samples. Murphy, that's Tony's guy by the way, in case you were too arrogant for introductions, saw them first. Raised the alarm. They were headed in your direction, trying to get down the side alley that spills into the main feeder for the city's back alley entrance to the subway system. We…"

He broke off, pain splashing across his face as both Gibbs and Abby whitened at his words.

"We tried to warn you two. But you were too busy with your…with _whatever_ the hell it is with you two these days. You didn't hear us, you didn't turn. They were headed straight for you, because you were right by that damned alley. One of them, definitely not the brains of the operation, saw your guns in your holsters and drew. We shouted at you again, but you and Tony looked like you were about to fucking _fight_ each other."

He broke off once more as rage was beginning to overtake him.

"You were blocking their entrance. They needed you out of their way, and neither of you were moving. They got closer and closer, we couldn't catch up, they had too much of a head start. We couldn't fire; you were all too close together. There was nothing…nothing we could do…"

Memories, both chaotic and dull, were beginning to trickle back into Gibbs' brain as he stared silently. He was too engrossed in the recounting of the tale to truly notice the anger festering and darkening in Tim's eyes. He was too stunned to notice the rapidly nervous looks that Abby was exchanging between both he and Gibbs, her heart both sinking and racing at the unusual fire she could see in Tim.

"There was nothing that we could do in that moment," the younger agent continued, his voice low and bitter. "They got closer, and you still weren't moving. Your back was to them, but Tony was facing them. He didn't hear our warnings, but he caught their movement out of the corner of his eye. It was all over so fast. He didn't even have time to think it through. Surely…surely if he'd time to think it through he would have let you go to hell for the way you've treated him…."

He rubbed a hand through his hair, bunching the sandy locks in his hands in irritation and misery.

"But he didn't, did he? Have time to think? Because if he did, he would have just let you die, he-"

"Tim," Abby squeaked in interjection for the first time, horror splashed across her face. "Don't say that. Don't say things like that." She turned to look at an ashen Gibbs with a wildly shaking head. "Don't listen," she urged the eldest of the three, "He's just…upset. He doesn't know what he's saying." She turned back to Tim, tears shining in her wide eyes. "Right?"

For the first time that he could remember, McGee couldn't say the thing she needed to hear.

"No, Abby," he flatly contradicted, "I do know what I'm saying." Turning back to Gibbs, he quirked a brow. "Tony saw them coming. He saw them raise their guns; he knew he had a second. No more, no less, a second. He could jump out of the way, or he could shove you out of the way. There wasn't time for both. There might have been, had…things between you two been as they were. But I think we all know what would have happened if he had tried to drag both of you to the ground. You would have thought he was starting a brawl with you, right? You would have resisted, and you would both be dead."

Pure, unadulterated rage was shining in the brown eyes now.

"So, he chose you. After all you've put him through since you came back from that shooting, he chose you. And I guess, after all I didn't do for him, he still chose me. Still tried to be in my life, in all our lives. I should have done something, said something, and I didn't. And I accept that, that's on me. And still, he chose to stick around for me, for us. Don't ask me why, because I don't know. I don't _know_ why he would do that. I definitely don't know why he would choose to take a bullet to the chest and a bullet to the shoulder for you. I don't _know_ why he's not sitting up and talking right now, and you are. I don't _know_ how he could possibly still have your six after you abandoned his, for no reason."

He raised a brow that seemed to quiver with the rage that was coursing through his body.

"I don't _know_ why you're alive and he's-"

A voice at the door cut him smartly off as all three heads swivelled vigorously to the source.

"Right here."

….

TBC

….


	9. Visitation

The man quirked a brow when the gaping silence became a little too much and offered a rather dismissive come sheepish shrug. "Well, technically I _am_ Tony DiNozzo. Though junior insists on telling everybody that he's Tony and I'm just plain old Anthony. I think its ageism myself, I was known as Tony when I was his age. But, hey, what's an abbreviation between friends right?" Strolling into the room in his expensive and probably hire purchased suit, Anthony DiNozzo Sr stole an appraising glance of the room. "Though from the sounds of it, it's not all that friendly in here?"

Three mouths dropped open even further in amazement as the suited and booted man leaned against a nearby cabinet, clearly waiting for an answer. It didn't take long to realise that the three original occupants weren't feeling all that chatty and he cleared his throat uneasily. "Ok…can someone please tell me how my son has come to be in a near dead condition, and there's not one of his so called team in his room with him? In fact, there are three perfect strangers in there with him? One of them, a woman I've never seen, crying like a banshee over his chest?"

He shot Gibbs a pointed look, and they all saw instantly that this was not the carefree Anthony DiNozzo Sr of times past. This man…this man was all kinds of livid, and scared.

"You look fine, all things considered. My boy on the other hand might not see another day, so they tell me; they rang me you see…seeing as none of you people thought to." He looked around the room, disdain freely colouring his face. "Surely he should be in a private facility by the way? Surely NCIS ought to spring for an agent who has been grievously injured in the line of duty? He's been with your agency long enough, right?" He shot Gibbs another pointed look, his hackles clearly rising. "You've always rubbed it in my face how much my boy looks up to you instead of me, so why aren't you doing anything for him? From what I just heard, the reason he's in that bed across the hall is you."

He paused, scrubbing a hand over eyes that were beginning to water.

"It's always been for you though, hasn't it? Everything junior does is for his idol, the mighty _Gibbs."_

Tim felt his eyes bulge as Gibbs felt his mouth set into a grim line and Abby felt her heart plummet.

He didn't know.

He didn't have a clue.


	10. Loyalty and Breaking Points

Disgust splashed across the man's usually open and wizened face, worry eating his insides like an untamed and rampant parasite. Alarm bells were beginning to wail like claxons in his mind. There was something wrong with this picture, aside from his only child lying motionless, dependant on every tube under the sun imaginable to keep him alive. There was something else, something else entirely going on. There was an undercurrent in the room, he could feel it. Rage bubbled in the pit of his gut as he tore his gaze away from an ashen McGee and a trembling Abby. That ire increased to magma levels when his eyes fell upon the bed's occupant.

The holier than thou, thoroughly self impressed, patriarchal Gibbs.

Junior's freaking hero.

His teeth, expensively maintained and yet unpaid for, crunched together in painful irritation. "I don't think I have a speech impediment," he purred lowly, "But just in case I do, or if I'm speaking a different language, I'll repeat myself." He trained his gaze even more firmly on Gibbs, his jowls near salivating with anger. "My Tony is near death's door. I would like, as his father, to know how that came about. I would also like to know why not one of you cares enough to be in there with him. Knowing who that trio that is in there with him are would be pretty helpful as well."

Leaning once more against the nearby cabinet, he spoke to the room at large.

"Whenever you're ready of course, no rush. Not as if it's a matter of life or death is it?"

Abby's already startlingly white face paled at his words, a deadened squeak caught in her throat. Glancing at Tim anxiously, she was far from reassured. There was an odd twitch in the agent's jaw as he remained resolutely silent. Senior's eyes roved over them for a moment, bulging with impatience. Giving them up as a bad job with a snarling scowl, he pointed straight at Gibbs' chest. "You," he spat, worry causing his usually suave demeanour to be cast aside, "You're not exactly known for holding back, right? Please, don't start now. Answer me damnit, and tell me why you or your agency isn't doing more for my boy!"

Gibbs stared straight ahead, his heart hammering against his chest with a disturbing tempo.

"My agency," he muttered, not knowing what he was going to say, only knowing that his lips were moving, "Can't do anything for Tony." He paused for a moment, his eyes slipping shut as a yearning pain descended, fluttering cruelly down from the cursed cloud of his own life. "And neither can I, alright? There's nothing I can do….there's nothing…"

Tim made an explosive sound in his throat, but Abby silenced him with a pointed look at Tony's father. Biting his lip on that merit alone and knowing what Senior was about to hear was tough enough; McGee jerked his head in agreement. But not before shooting Gibbs a look that was in no way was shy about explaining his reasoning. Swallowing the look his agent shot him with difficulty, the team-lead made to open his mouth once more, but he was well and truly too late.

"Excuse me?" Anthony spluttered, sending his hands so violently into the air that a nearby vase of plastic flowers went volleying off the cabinet, crashing to the floor, splintering instantly. Ignoring the crunchy ceramic underneath his feet, Senior moved closer. "What in the good hell do you mean man? You're telling me that everything Tony has done for you and that damned NCIS…you and they….are just going to let him vegetate in this hellhole?" He glanced disdainfully at the pale, wearied walls. "Are you insane? What in the hell is wrong with you?"

"Good luck finding that out," Tim mumbled under his breath, loud enough to be heard. Feeling a scorching Gibbs gaze upon him, he shot back a look of scorn and cleared his throat. Taking Abby gently by the arm, he spoke directly to Senior. "We're going to go and see Tony now and let you two…uhh, catch up." Increasing the pressure on a clearly conflicted Abby's arm, he raised a brow.

She stared for a moment, before nodding and following him out the door without a word or a backwards glance. Watching them go with narrowing eyes, Senior eventually turned back to Gibbs with the beginnings of truly feral anger. "What is going on around here? I don't think I've ever heard one of your people say a single thing out of line around you." He felt his stomach contract painfully. "What aren't you telling me? What is the big damned secret?" He threw his arm in the direction of Tony's room. "I know I'm just his father, I know that, but humour me?"

Swallowing, Gibbs sat up in bed straighter, irritated by the acute sense of loss he felt by Abby and Tim's departure. In one way, he was shocked that Senior seemed so woefully uninformed. In another, he wasn't surprised. Tony's relationship or lack thereof with his father, rightly or wrongly was a pillar of foundation in their own relationship. Well…it had been. "What has Tony told you?" he heard himself saying, without really intending to say anything. Everything seemed so alien to him, it was as if he was enacting this scene through the body of another, through the mind of another.

He suddenly wished he'd never woken up.

"Told me?" echoed Senior blankly, "What do you mean, told me? He hasn't told me anything. I mean we had dinner a few weeks ago and he seemed fine, he didn't seem as if he had anything on his mind. In fact I remember thinking he seemed happier than I'd seen him in a long time. I figured it was something to do with work, a promotion or something. But he said he was just happy with how his life was turning out, something like that." He scrubbed a hand in agitation across his face with the cryptic nature of the conversation and sighed. "Look, Gibbs…you think what you think about me, and I think what I think about you…but we got one thing in common, right? Tony. So would you please…just tell me whatever it is that you don't want to tell me?"

The patient felt an impossible weariness cloak him, pulling him back down into the darkest corners of his own mind.

"You're wrong," he muttered, to his own knees, suddenly unable to make eye contact. "About us having the one thing in common. We don't. I mean, we did. But…we don't, not now. Not anymore…" As he spoke, he was ashamed to feel the tremor work its way into his vocals. The pain and the shame of the last two years threatened to engulf him, to laughingly drag him into its most depraved layer and encase him there for the rest of his days. The sterility of the room, and the hostility of its one other occupant seemed to splash a picture of his future in front of him. Loneliness and emptiness. Tony's voice suddenly echoed around his head, and despite the words he was unconsciously recalling, his voice was like a soothing balm.

Familiar, and loyal.

" _The saddest thing is that you're going to die alone Gibbs. And it didn't have to be that way; you made it that way..."_

The kid had never been more right.

"What are you talking about?" Senior asked quietly, the heat gone from his voice. He sensed that something had happened, something of a certain magnitude. Fear prickled him. He had never been a good father, he knew that. He had come to terms with that, as best as one could. And as much as it had galled him over the years, as much jealousy and anger as it had stirred in him, he grew glad of the fact Tony had Gibbs. Much and all as it should have been him, Junior deserved better. And Gibbs…he had always been better, without the constraints of blood and the complexities that went with it.

"What are you _talking_ about?" the man repeated quietly, his stomach churning.

As the reality of Tony's sacrifice began to really drip into his skull, Gibbs suddenly found breathing a hard thing to do. Images of his once upon a time present protégée lying in a hospital bed, peppered in bullet wounds that were intended for him constricted his windpipe with a stranglehold force. Sucking in air was like breathing through a dented straw as he struggled to answer one of the must unfathomable questions he'd ever been asked. His once upon a time strategy, crafted in a haze of hurt and bourbon seemed to shriek and roar with stupidity. He could have handled it so much better; he should have handled it so much better. Tony, he deserved so much more.

"Tony…doesn't work for me anymore."

The words seemed to blow shrapnel into the room. A silence so profound spread over the two men. It was almost painful on the eardrums. Senior looked at Gibbs with a slack face, eyes beady with the strains of confusion. Shaking his head after a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, he spluttered in indignant misunderstanding.

"You fired my son?"

He shook his head once more in amazement as anger began to grip him once more.

"You _fired_ my _son?_ After everything he's done for you, you fired him?"

Gibbs shook his head slowly, staring into his knees as if they were some sort of bizarre, individual cosmos. "No," he murmured, "But I should have done, it would have been better for him if I had. But…I was too much of a coward. So he quit, after a while. Has his own team now, over at Vice. Has done for a few months."

The entire air content of the room could have been lost in Senior's windpipe as he gaped widely.

"Excuse me?"

His words were whispered, and they rang with shock. Hurt coated him that Junior had essentially lied to him, but his dominant emotion was definitely shock. The Gibbs and Tony relationship was one that he knew to be renowned far and wide. The only way he had ever envisaged that relationship coming to an end was with the stepping aside or the fatal wounding of Gibbs. He felt his palms pulse with sweat as he struggled to make sense of the faulty explanation he was receiving.

"He quit," Gibbs repeated quietly, an intense and non-physical pain seeping into every pore of his body. "He took a lot, before he did though. He took a hell of a lot, more than anyone should ever have taken. But that's Tony, isn't it? Loyal to a fault." He smiled tightly, a self hatred evident on his suddenly aged features. "My loyal St Bernard," he muttered, to himself. "Guess it just goes to show that even the most loyal people have a breaking point, and I sure as hell found his."

Senior felt a migraine begin to make itself known behind his eyes.

Before inspiration struck him, as his eyes caught an IV tube, filled with a dripping liquid.

"You're medicated," he grunted, "Don't know what you're saying. Tony, quit? Don't be ridiculous man. You know my boy would live and die for you. He wouldn't quit, he loves his job." He shook his head in exasperation at the man he had such conflicting emotions for. "I'll let you rest. You clearly need it, you're addled. I'll go and find Tim and Abby, and find out from them." Turning on his heel before Gibbs could answer, he was at the door before the patient found his voice.

"If he dies, it's my fault. I might as well have put those bullets in him myself."

Senior stalled in the door, his back rigid with shock.

Turning back to Gibbs with an ashen face, he pulled his jaw up off the floor with much more of an effort that ought to be humanly necessary.

"What the devil are you talking about?"

Gibbs tore his gaze up from his knees and forced himself to look Tony's father in the eyes. That was the very least he could do. He had always known that his plan would involve pain, but he had never envisaged that it would cause this much. It would take an army of shrinks to unravel the entire web of misery they had been trapped in, that he had spun, but for now…he owed the man in front of him the truth. The machines beside him amped up their beeping as his heart continued to race uncomfortably, the sickly spread of nausea working its way through its gut.

"I've pretty much been killing your son, slowly but surely, for a very long time."

…

TBC

…


	11. Mind over Matter

Senior's face fused with confusion as he stared at the unusually prone figure. Before he could find words to string together, machines began beeping with a pressing tempo. Ashen though he already was, Gibbs paled even further as a hand unconsciously twitched to lie over his gut. A bustling doctor suddenly emerged in the mouth of the door, shooing Senior out impatiently. "This man needs rest," the thirty-something instructed sharply, unhooking his stethoscope, "Please leave, a nurse will inform you when you can return."

Sighing in frustration, Senior spun on his expensive heel and stalked from the room.

Gibbs scowled as hands probed his stomach, sending pain into the higher peaks of endurance. Unperturbed, Dr Mensen continued his examination. "Have you been following the dietary regime your doctor would have recommended for you?" he asked quietly, pressing against the rigidity under his hands. "Been avoiding alcohol and stress?" Throwing the young man an incredulous look, Gibbs rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath. "Oh yeah…been having a whale of a time. I took time out from writing my memoirs to be here today, as a matter of fact."

Dr Mensen pursed his lips.

"Mr Gibbs, we've-"

"Agent Gibbs."

The medic nodded, impatiently. "Agent Gibbs, you truly need to start treating your condition with the attention it demands. You simply cannot continue to be so cavalier. I've only met you a handful of times since your admission, and never before that, and I must say…I've never met a more disinterested patient." He shook his head slowly, with a tad of condescension that only his youth and education could muster. "Surely you want to fight? Surely your regular doctor laid out for you that this truly could go either way. A positive mental attitude is half the battle, in and of itself. This is the third time I count that I've asked you routine questions that you simply refuse to answer."

Gibbs glowered.

"Hey, doc…there's a young man with bullet holes, yanno…actual mortal wounds, just down the hall there. You know who could use your help? _He_ could. Tony DiNozzo could. So would ya please take your hands off me and go and help someone who can be helped." Nodding sagely, Dr Mensen continued his prodding. "I am not Mr DiNozzo's physician," he countered, "I am however, yours. So, in that vein…could you please answer a few questions? Pretty please?"

Gibbs threw the man's hands off of him in a bout of his now habitual rage.

"Are you deaf or just stupid?" he snarled, "I don't want your help. I don't want anyone's help. I just want it to be over, you understand? That's it. No more, no less. I forgot to take my meds for a couple of days, like _I already told you._ I'll take em' and I'll get the hell out of here. Can you follow that much or do you need some kind of written aid?"

Dr Mensen sighed loudly.

"Agent Gibbs, that medication is designed to alleviate your symptoms. It is not designed to _treat_ the underlying condition. You need surgery, major surgery. Yet, I see from your records that you failed to show for all pre-op procedures and information giving. The more time goes on…the more your chances dip. Significantly so. Do you understand that? Do you know what that means?"

Gibbs thrust his chin upwards in defiance.

"I do."

Dr Mensen chose his next words carefully, though he really needn't have bothered.

"I think a consultation with a doctor from our psychiatry team might be helpful here, Agent Gibbs."

Gibbs stared with glacial eyes as he shook his head with an eerie slowness. "I don't want to see any quacks in this room. I told you, I understand what you are saying. I made my decision a long time ago, and now it's come to roost, and I'm ok with that. What I'm not ok with, is going down in the field. If you got some magic solution to that that you can hit me with until…until the field is done for me, then let me know." He straightened his bed clothes and stared steadily out the window. "If not, then get the hell out."

The frown on the young doctor's face was at engraving levels.

"Agent Gibbs," he countered lowly, "I do not think you received the adequate counselling you need to make an informed decision. Please, allow me to arrange a consult for you. It does not necessarily have to be this way, you still have a chance. A fighting chance. If you had engaged with your doctors sooner, like last year, when this became operable…you would have had a better chance. But as it is, you still have a limited window of time in which to change your mind. Please, allow me to have a colleague to drop in for a quick chat with you?"

Gibbs glared.

"Are you stupid or something, doc?"

Dr Mensen didn't miss a beat.

"Well, my mom say's I'm the smartest person she's ever met, so no, I don't think so."

Gibbs was slapped in the face with nostalgia at the tongue in cheek remark, reminding him of someone else. A different time. Breathing in deeply, he pushed away those hazy memories. They would do him no good now, and he knew it. "I don't want your shrinks," he muttered, "I know what's coming down the tracks for me, and I'm ok with it. Alright? I am ok with it. I will take whatever damn pills will stop me collapsing in the field and spending the days thereafter sleeping my ass off. Got any?"

"Agent Gibbs," the younger man sighed, "There is no magic pill for that. The toxins are building up in your body, day by day. Your kidneys are no longer functioning in a manner that can keep you getting by. That is why you collapsed. We gave you dialysis while you were under, but it was minimally effective given the deterioration that has occurred." He paused for breath, levelling Gibbs with a stare he had never before used with a patient. "This is going to happen again. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow…but it is going to happen again. Maybe when you're driving, maybe not. You are going to pass out, the toxins are going to flood your body, and next time…I don't know will we be waking you up."

He sat down on the bed, frustration gripping him.

"Please, Agent Gibbs. You must think clearly. You are not an old man; this is not your time to pass peacefully away from old age. There are interventions, surgical interventions that may prolong your life until a donor is found. You need to agree to them, to engage with us." He scrubbed a hand through his thick hair, and tilted his head in sincerity. "You need to fight for your life, Agent Gibbs, you need to fight. And, I might not be your regular doctor and I might not know you from a hole in the wall. But… you don't strike me as a man who ever backs down from a fight. Why start now?"

The ghost of a hundred regrets suddenly swam in Gibbs' eyes as his lips twitched at the corners.

"I've been fighting all my life. I'm done with fighting, doc. For me, or for anyone else. I'm done."

Dr Mensen quirked a brow.

"What about those two that have been in an out of here like a yo-yo since you got here? Your agents, right? What about them?" He shook his head. "You don't strike me as a regular guy, Agent Gibbs, or a regular boss. It's quite clear that you're more than a superior to those two, no matter what else is going on. You really ready to give up on them, when there's a chance?"

Gibbs stared with a tautening jaw.

"What makes you think I don't got a loving wife and kids to give up on?"

The doctor shrugged.

"Like I said, you don't strike me as a regular guy." He held up Gibbs' chart in his hands. "That and the fact that your listed next of kin is also a patient here, the one you mentioned. A… Mr Tony DiNozzo?"

Glacial eyes turned even frostier.

"Agent DiNozzo."

 _Should have seen that coming,_ thought Dr Mensen as he nodded obligingly. "I take it Agent DiNozzo is opposed to your decision to refuse treatment?" He felt his frustrations rise when Gibbs merely looked over his head in answer. "He doesn't know, does he?" he surmised sagely. "None of them know, you've told no one at all about your condition?"

Gibbs managed a roll of the eyes.

"Had a psychic like you consult on a case with me once. They never did find his body."

Dr Mensen smiled ruefully.

"That's a risk I'm willing to run. Given that you are currently so lethargic you can't even get out of bed, and are relying on a catheter to relieve yourself." Gibbs scowled with a snarl. "Isn't it unprofessional to mock patients? Or am I still under here?" Shrugging unapologetically, knowing that conventional routes were lost on this particular patient, the doctor tapped the chart in his hands. "It isn't exactly the norm for the patient to threaten the doctor, so we'll call it quits."

A low grumbling filled the room.

"As your next of kin," the doctor continued over the snarling, "Agent DiNozzo really ought to be apprised of the…situation. It is highly unusual to have an emergency contact in this scenario who is completely in the dark." Silence spiralled for a moment, as a weight seemed to settle on Gibbs' shoulders. "Take him off," he eventually muttered, his tone emotionless, "The forms, take him off all your forms. I don't…I filled out all that stuff a long time ago. Tony… he's not my next of kin or emergency contact, or whatever you want to call it. Not anymore."

Well manicured brows shot up.

"Do you have a replacement in mind?"

A gripping, powerful and all consuming loneliness overcame Gibbs as he shook his head slowly.

"Nope."

Dr Mensen opened his mouth, but quickly bit back his original thought.

"Well…I'll let you mull it over a little while longer, as it is, you need rest right now. I'll check in on tomorrow mornings rounds. Please, Agent Gibbs, use the night to really think about your options here. We can act, but we need to do it quickly. The odds and the clock are against us now, please don't waste anymore of your time. Make the right decision."

He stood, unsure as to why he was so hell bent on helping the cantankerous patient.

But there was….a certain something about him.

A certain depletion that suggested he had given so much of himself to others, that he had nothing left for himself.

Turning to leave the room, Gibbs' cough had him swivelling back. "That whole doctor-patient confidentiality guff. That stands, right? I don't want…none of them are to know. None of them." He shot a baleful look from now tired eyes, as he slumped against the pillows, a fatigue coursing through him. "Don't want them to know…"

Sadness fluttered over Dr Mensen as he nodded and conceded to the obligations of his profession.

"They'll never hear it from me, Agent Gibbs."

As the last reassuring smile that was unprofessionally and uncharacteristically tinged with emotion was smiled, the doctor was gone. Slumping fully into the pillows as the pain once again pricked in his gut, Gibbs felt his ever heavy eye lids slip down. Beeping machines lulled him into an uneasy sleep, interrupted with hazy faces flitting in and out of his mind. Shannon, Kelly. Mike and Jenny. Abbs, Ziva, Kate…Tim and Bishop. All wore looks of sympathy that made him want to vomit into his own subconscious.

The last face however, the clearest face, wore a look of scorn and of rage that burned into his groggy mind.

Tony's.

So lost was he to that face, and that expression, and all that went with it that he didn't feel the presence that stepped into the room. Conscious or not, he was always alert to not being alone. But not this time. He didn't sense the entrant, didn't see the shocked expression they wore. Didn't see the bitter cascade of hot, salty tears as they began to fall in stupefied horror down pale cheeks. Trembling where she stood, Abby Sciuto felt her whole world fall apart. Her tears splashed onto the floor, the only visual remnants of her splintered being. Her torn voice was infused with denial as it wavered around the room, never to get an answer."

"Gibbs, you can't…die. You can't die, Tony… he needs you. Now more than ever."

…

 **Batch Update A/N:** Haven't posted for a while due to worrying health issues of a close family member/job pressures. Things look good on both fronts now thank God, and I should be back to my normal updating, now that I have a lighter headspace. A huge thanks to everyone for the reviews/messages asking how I was. I truly appreciate them, you guys are great, and thank you for your patience! All other stories will be updated soon!

A/N(2): I have absolutely *no* medical knowledge. Apologies to those in the know if this makes no sense! Grey's Anatomy can only go so far!

….


	12. Malignancy

His insides froze slowly as the sounds of the numb sobbing slowly trickled into his foggy brain. The sounds of the muted and stupefied horror left no doubt in his soul as to their owner. He didn't need to ask to know what she knew. She would have heard it all. He had let his defences down with that imbecilic doctor and now his most treasured yet corrosive secret was no longer his own. His neck seemed to stiffen to stone of its own accord, he couldn't turn it. He couldn't look at her; he couldn't possibly meet her eyes. The monitors that seemed to fester on every feasible section of his body increased their ear aching screech. It was only the thin, wavering and borderline childlike "Gibbs?" that could have melted the ice build up in his neck. He could never resist her when she sounded so broken, so utterly decimated that a single word seemed to ooze with tangible misery.

He held out a weakened hand to her.

It shook as he desperately tried to steady it.

Even in the dire seriousness that cloaked him, shame seeped into his gut. He was a wreck, a relic. Useless. He forced his eyes to remain open as he slowly pulled them up to face the face he never wanted to see hurt. She was a terrifying shade of pale. Her eyes were burning with disbelief, rigid and unyielding. He could see it immediately. She wasn't going to accept it. She couldn't. In a way, he understood. It took him years really, to accept that Shannon and Kelly were gone. Abby just had the added misfortune of having to know him as he wheezed and gasped like an infirm waste of space. A thought, a desperately horrendous thought that he had thought many a time…crossed his mind. One sight of the stream of tears that were spilling down her face however soon put paid to that notion.

"Abbs, come here."

She choked on her own sob as she shook her head wildly, nausea beginning to engulf her, the room beginning to spin. She was in a dream. A horrendous, ludicrous dream. But as she looked at him, really looked at him, she realised the signs were there. His hand was shaking. His eyes weren't as blue, weren't as piercing. His neck was a little sunken, his complexion a little gaunt. She should have seen it before. But she didn't. Because the thought had never crossed her mind. She had shot down Tim's concerns that something was amiss, based on Gibbs' treatment of Tony. She had made excuses for him. He'd been shot by a kid she'd shrieked. That tended to change a man. Tony understood. Tony wouldn't hold it against him. Her tears as she stood there were tears of sheer conflict. Raw pain at the news she wasn't supposed to know and acidic guilt at the treatment of a friend who lay in a hospital bed mere meters from her.

Dizziness overwhelmed her.

Her heart was racing; her brow and palms were sweating profusely. Her pulse thudded uncomfortably close to the surface of her neck as her knees threatened to buckle. Perspiration trickled down her spine as some nameless, faceless doctors' words thundered like poison in her ears. Gibbs' eyes were wide with something she couldn't understand as his outstretched hand remained shaking and outwards. He was speaking, but she couldn't hear him. She was underwater. She was drowning. Her legs tingled with electricity as she was struck dumb, unable to speak, unable to hear.

Unable to breathe.

Darkness suddenly consumed her and she greeted it like an old friend. She needed to descend into the pillow of oblivion the nothingness would provide. She didn't hear the horrified shout as she descended like a broken ballerina to the sterile hospital floor. She didn't know that she had been spared a blow to the head by strong arms. Arms that cradled her gently as the face those arms belonged to whitened with pure shock and fear. Brown eyes flickered up to ghostly blue counterparts, questions singing within them like some perverse interval act. Standing slowly with her in his arms, assessing her pulse as he did so, Timothy McGee instinctively knew his life was about to change forever.

"What is it?"

Gibbs shook his head as purposefully as he could before the nausea overtook him. "Get a doctor," he ordered urgently, pointing at Abby's limp frame, securely encased in McGee's arms. "She needs a goddamned doctor. Go get one!" Tim pursed his lips and shook his head with an equal sense of purpose. "She's just fainted," he said quietly, "And Abby only faints in two situations. One, when she's at a concert and the music is too and I quote, "awesome to handle." He looked down at her, a frown knitting across his brow. "Or, when she's just gotten bad news. As in, really bad news." He looked around the room with sceptic fear burning in his gut. "I don't see a band setting up in here, Boss. So it must be the latter."

He swallowed.

"So, like I said, what is it?"

Gibbs felt his eyes flutter downwards as his faint grasp on life began to tumble along with them. His secret, his most dirty, festering secret…was out. There was only one way out of the lamp and the genie had thoroughly rubbed it. There was no stuffing it back in. He looked at McGee, and conflicting emotions battled through him. He'd changed so much. He pointed to the sofa in the corner of the room, Tim nodded and crossing, he gently placed Abby upon it. Shrugging out of his suit jacket, he draped it over her and brushing some hair out of her eyes, turned back to Gibbs. He raised a brow.

"Just tell me. Just spit it out."

Gibbs couldn't help but smile a rather sad, yet proud smile. He was assertive now, this Tim. A decade ago there would be no way he could tell him. Now though, now…he could handle it. He was a fine man, and Gibbs took comfort in the fact that he would be around for Abby. That he would keep her close when he no longer could. That he would be there for her, when he no longer would. He pointed to the edge of the bed and cleared his throat. "Take a seat, McGee." Tim shook his head rather abruptly. "I'd rather not get too comfortable, I don't want Tony on death's door and left alone with practical strangers. So just tell me whatever you want to tell me so I can get out of here and back to him."

Gibbs swallowed that sucker punch with enormous difficulty.

He had a point.

And there was no easy way to say it and he was as gruff on his death bed as he was in his heyday.

"I'm dying, Tim."

McGee stared silently. He stared at Gibbs as if he were some sort of bizarre oil painting in some pretentious gallery. He stood and he stared and he tried to understand. But of course he didn't. Because there was never any understanding bizarre oil paintings in pretentious art galleries. And so he offered the only explanation that made any sense. "You're medicated," he answered shortly; "You don't know what you're saying. You didn't take a hit. You'll be fine." He turned on his heel and made to storm from the room, an inexplicable rage filling him. Gibbs was lying there like the Mona Lisa spouting some rubbish about snuffing it, when Tony…the guy who'd saved him from knocking on heaven's door, was in actual mortal peril. He felt his teeth grind together when he crossed half way to the door and Gibbs' voice rang out behind him.

"I'm not dying from today, I'm dying from liver cancer."

Tim froze. He froze as if someone had rammed all the stalagmites and stalactites in the world down his throat. His eyes bulged at the sockets as his brain scrambled to keep up. He felt his hands and feet go cold as the classic fight or flight response kicked in. He felt a gust of sterility wash lazily over his tonsils as his mouth dropped open. He shook his head as if trying to clear an imaginary ear blockage. Pivoting slowly on his heel, his brows had disappeared into his hairline. Gibbs stared back at him steadily, cursing the fact that he couldn't even muster the energy to get out of his damned bed. There was a deathly silence between them; an imaginary wall neither could penetrate. Tim's mind was reaching melt down levels as thousands of tumbling thoughts barrelled through it.

It simply could not be true.

"You're lying."

The words slipped out of his mouth before he could bite them back. As soon as he heard them, coupled with his thin, almost whining tone, he was embarrassed. He sounded like a child. He felt even more like one when Gibbs looked at him with an uncomfortable amount of understanding in his jaded blue eyes. How had he not noticed the change in his eyes? They were like watered and beaten down stained glass windows. Musty and murky, unable to let the light truly in. Tim swallowed. How had he not noticed that?"

"I wish I was, Tim. But I'm not."

McGee stared once more. He didn't know he was standing in exactly the same spot Abby had been when she heard the news. But Gibbs did, and he hated that spot with a vicious passion. He took a deep breath, trying to explain it, but knowing he couldn't. Because he truly didn't know. He'd never read those ridiculous pamphlets they'd pushed on him, never attended those moronic therapy sessions. He'd heard the word cancer in his doctor's office, a long time ago, and decided his fate. He wasn't going to draw it out. He wasn't going to fight an unwinnable fight; he wasn't going to spend what time remained to him drugged up to the eyeballs, unable to wipe his own ass. He would rather end it all himself than do that. And now, it was time to stand by that decision.

"I found out about a year or so ago," he heard himself saying. "Maybe a little more, I'm not exactly sure. Don't know how long I have left and all that nonsense. All I know is I'm not letting them stick me with this and stick me with that. I made the decision to refuse all medical treatment for this…whatever it is, when I found out. And I'm standing by it. You know as well as I do that there's no fighting something like this. After the…" he cleared his throat awkwardly. "After the shooting…I'm….well let's just say I'm not afraid of death. All I want is to spend whatever time I have left on the job and lucid. Not drugged up in one of these damned beds."

He swallowed once more.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Tim had a freight train worth of emotions crashing through his brain as he stood there, his ears ringing. But one feeling managed to snake out past the rest, managed to round the corner before the rest could catch up. He flickered a gaze over towards Abby who stirred slightly, murmuring unconsciously. When she settled, he turned back to Gibbs and arched a brow. His face was paler than pale and his brow was dampened by a delicate sheen of sweat, but his voice was firm and unwavering. "A year ago? Or so?"

Gibbs nodded silently.

"About that, yeah."

Tim's jaw suddenly stiffened as his body begged him to yield to a more tolerable response. Anguish is painful, anger is distracting. He closed his eyes and allowed that thick coat of red rage to paint him without compunction. Images of the last year or more….words that had been spoken and unspoken screamed in his ears. Taking a deep breath he forced himself to open his eyes and look the man he had once respected more than anyone directly in the eye. "More than a year or so ago…that's when you started treating Tony like a piece of crap…"

It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

Gibbs swallowed.

"Tim-"

"No," the younger man half snarled, causing the elder's eyes to widen in surprise. "That _is_ when you changed towards him. When you came back from the shooting…you found about then, didn't you?" His eyes were suddenly alight with rage. "Didn't you?" Gibbs tilted his head slightly, the movement making the room spin. "Tim…that doesn't….why is that relevant?" The stiffening of the junior agent was almost medically impossible, but he managed it. "Why is that relevant?" he echoed in a dangerously quiet voice, " _Why is that relevant?"_ He laughed a bitter, hateful laugh. The hairs on Gibbs' neck rose and quivered in response. He had never, in over a decade, heard such a sound out of McGee's mouth.

Tim threw his arms up almost violently.

"Oh I don't know," he snarled, "Maybe it's _relevant_ because you've been treating Tony like he's either the scum of the earth of as if he's invisible since you found about…about this. You've been either on his back non-stop, putting him down, making a fool of him or you've been ignoring him. And this is the reason? Your…illness? That's why you've been treating him like shit?" He forced himself to stop the rising tone of his voice as Abby stirred in his peripheral vision. "What the hell were you hoping to achieve?" he demanded quietly and yet viciously. "How was treating Tony like a pariah going to help?"

He suddenly paled further as what he considered to be the truth set in like gangrene.

"He's your punching bag," he muttered slowly, as if to himself. "He's always been your punching bag, your whipping boy. Even when things were good, he was always the one you blamed for everything, the one you put everything on. Even when something was _my_ fault, and I told you that, you still blamed him." He jerked his head towards the sleeping Abby. "All the things she's pulled throughout the years that you've somehow managed to excuse and yet at the same time, blame Tony for. Same with Kate, Ziva and Bishop."

He shook his head incredulously.

"Is that what this was?" he whispered in horror, "Your last stand? Your last opportunity to put all your shit on him? You were too cowardly to face up to what was happening to you, so you lashed out at him?" He felt his jaw harden painfully. "It all makes sense now. It all makes so much sense." A wave of self loathing washed over him. He barked out a loathsome laugh. "And I'm just as bad. I stood back and watched it happen. Year after year, I watched it happen. I told myself it was just tough love, which…maybe it was. Back at the start, at the beginning. But this last year…that's been pure and unadulterated bullying. Making yourself feel better about your cowardice at Tony's expense. And we all saw it and did nothing."

He felt, to his shame, his eyes water.

"And now he's lying down the hall surrounded by a different team. People, who couldn't possibly know him, people who aren't _us._ He's lying there half dead, surrounded by strangers, because of _you._ I was just down there, in case you were wondering. And they don't know if he's going to make it." He let out a pained, bitter chuckle. "Be optimistic, but prepare yourselves for the worst," he repeated almost maniacally. "That's what they told us. Well, that's what the doctor's told his new team and they _kindly_ relayed the info to me. They don't like us very much, and it's pretty obvious why." He ran a hand through his damp hair, his heart heaving with the effort of watching his world tumble down around him. He felt a cold stone slip into his soul and it leeched his natural empathy and kindness from him. As he looked at the man in the hospital bed, he felt nothing but a coursing hatred. It would be a long time before he could truly understand what happened to him in that moment.

"You're a bastard, Gibbs. That second b? It's about the only truth you're capable of living up to."

His chest was heaving when the single tear spilled from his eyes. He couldn't control it and swiped it away with rage in his heart and held back the stream that was bashing at the banks of his eyes. He suddenly felt himself storming across the room and scooping the still slumbering Abby back into his arms. Bearing her weight easily in his arms, he pivoted and strode quick march to the door. Gibbs watched with a breaking heart and a constricting windpipe. His voice was thick and weak and to anyone who couldn't see where it projected from, none would believe it came from the mouth of the once great LJ Gibbs.

"Tim….please."

His tone and the word "please" would have stopped McGee dead in his tracks on a normal day. But this was not a normal day. There would never again be a normal day. The man that meant more to him than his own father was dying. Was not long for this world and had wasted precious time lying to them. Lying to them all. Spent time refusing treatment, spent time in his own web of misery. He had cancer but Tim now regarded him to be the cancer. A malignant growth. One that was trying to burrow its way into _him_ and those he loved. Well, he wouldn't let it. Gibbs had made his choice and had thought of no one but himself when he was making it. Tony was potentially on his way his way to a matching casket, and it was all Gibbs' fault.

It all came back to him.

He was a growth that needed cutting out.

The same way he'd cut them all out.

The same way he'd cut Tony down to a shadow of himself, cut out his glimmer and shine.

He turned in the door, Abby stirring sleepily in his arms, soon to be awake. Soon to wish she'd never woke up. Tim clutched her tighter to him, wishing he could protect her from the crushing reality, yet knowing he could not. He looked at Gibbs with a curious mixture of passionate hate and dispassionate indifference. In another world, he never would have reacted like he would. But Gibbs had hand crafted _this_ world, the one they were in. He had had hand crafted his own story as meticulously as he crated his boats. And that's what stung and that's what was unforgivable.

McGee raised a brow that made his face age a decade in one, swift movement.

"You wanted to do it all on your own Gibbs. You wanted to be the macho man and fall on your sword. You wanted to be a hero. Then be heroic. Be a lone wolf. Don't worry, we're going, we won't be in your way. So, be whatever the hell you think is what you should be. Deal with this however you want to deal with it. I have more pressing concerns. I have to go and sit by the bedside of my best friend and hope he doesn't die."

He stepped back and out the door, Abby still clutched to his chest.

"I have to go and hope that he doesn't die because he was protecting you."

He shook his head.

"Because if he does, Gibbs, if he does…if he dies because he made the mistake that we all made, the mistake of giving a crap about you….of trusting you…"

He hoisted Abby a little closer and turned to leave, calling chillingly cold words over his shoulder.

"You won't have to wait for the cancer to kill you, because I'll kill you myself."

….

A/N: Hands up, for a long time I'd pretty much forgotten about this one. Thankfully I had a few review prompts and here we are. Another gentle reminder, this isn't going to be angsty forever. I have a resolution in mind, but I just don't want to rush it!

_Inks

…..


	13. On My Terms

Dr Mensen broke into a jog and then into a full on sprint as his pager shrieked with urgency at his waist. Bursting into the room of his most mentally challenging non-psych patient, he pushed his way through the barrage of emergency staff with expediency. He took over the running of the code immediately but he felt his heart sink. Working quickly, he yanked Gibbs' pillow out from under him, laying him flat and straight. His brow puckered as his expert hands gauged the galloping and frantic beat of his heart and the cold, clammy quality of his skin. He shook his head. He'd left him stable just a couple of hours ago. "What the hell has gone on in here?" he barked to the room. "I gave strict instructions for this man to be closely monitored." He growled as he whipped off his stethoscope and was about to press it down upon the rigid chest when the voice of a timid intern nervously interrupted his gate.

"Dr Mensen, I don't think-"

"Quiet. I need to figure out what's driving this man's heart so fast it's going to explode in his chest."

The intern swallowed nervously, shunted to the side by the body of advanced experience around her. She wanted to melt into the walls, but this was a man's life and she was the only one in the room with freakishly sharp vision. Her voice wavered once more but she managed to force the words out and raise her left arm high. "Dr Mensen I think the reason is heart is about to explode in his chest is because he's been poisoned." Hearing the burning speed of Gibbs' heart and the concrete contracting of the man's chest, Dr Mensen really wasn't in the mood for nonsensical intern gibberish as he quickly considered the pros and cons of emergency exploratory surgery. "Nonsense," the irate medic barked, "Who in the _hell_ would risk breaking in to a hospital to poison a federal agent?" His instructions to prepare the nearest OR as a matter of hellacious urgency was cut short as the room shifted towards the intern who had an arm high in the air. Dr Mensen turned to stare and his eyes swivelled slowly up to the vial clasped in the shaking rookie's hand.

"Himself."

…..

A/N: I know this is pretty short, but there's an update real soon. This chapter is important for the way I wanna take this fic.

_Inks

….


	14. Medical Matters

The room was warm. Too warm. He was constricted. Things pressed here and there, tubes pinched there and here. The muttered voices above him were indecipherable, but he recognised them as important. And heated. There was an argument going on. Somehow, even in his drugged state, that knowledge was inordinately depressing. He tried to open his eyes but they were lead heavy. They twitched in response to his neural stimuli, but simply didn't have the meat to make it the whole way up. He was cloaked in his own shade of blackness, but the voices were getting stronger. Clearer. And angrier. Everything hurt. Things, places of his anatomy he hadn't even known to exist were screaming out in protest. A muffled gargle of discomfort bubbled in his throat.

There was something in it.

And then there were hands. So many hands. All over him.

The pain became even worse. It was intolerable.

His eyes were closed but they watered as the plastic tube was slowly and tenuously removed. His first independent and instinctive breath was like a river of razors coursing down his windpipe. He spluttered with the pain, with the pressure. Cold but careful hands pressed down on his shoulders and a professionally calm voice told him to remain calm, to breathe in small but frequent bouts. He tried to listen. The second breath wasn't quite as bad, and the third lesser still on the pain chart. But it was far from picnics and roses. His eyes fluttered again, but this time they got a little higher. He caught a glimpse of the room around him. The mash-up of his past and his present only served to ramp up the hammering in his head.

He was suddenly glad for his inability to keep tuned in.

Sometimes it was better to be tuned the hell out.

"What is the matter with him?" he heard an anxious voice ring out. Stressed, wavering and urgent. Definitely a part of his present, not his past. Breslin, it was definitely Breslin. Before anyone could answer her, another female voice cut across. "What's the matter with him? Are you some kind of imbecile? He's been _shot._ That's what's the _matter_ with him." That voice was definitely a part of his past. Abby, it was definitely Abby. But she sounded really off. Something more than him was wrong with her. Even half dead, drugged to the eyeballs and visually impaired, he could tell. He was alive and would most likely continue to be. But something in her voice didn't reflect that. Something deeper was wrong. He was getting really tired as he tried to follow the humdrum of voices above him.

The blackness was coming.

The doctor cleared her throat and continued her soft examination of his mangled torso. "He is heavily sedated. He's breathing on his own now which is a very encouraging sign, but we mustn't expect miracles. This is going to be a long, arduous and painful recovery. Your friend is extremely lucky to be alive. He's defied all the odds to get even this far. He won't be conscious or fully alert for several days at an estimate. He needs routine, follow up surgery when he's stable enough. Thereafter, a rigorous programme of physiotherapy and counselling. Please, do not upset yourselves. He is in the best hands and is making the best progress possible. He's not out of the woods yet, but his stats are very encouraging. You must try and be positive and be here for him when he does wake. He's going to need his friends and family around him."

Suddenly the hands were removed, a note was taken down and Dr Boyle with a nod took her leave. His past, Tim, Abby and Bishop were planted on his right hand side. His present, Breslin, Murphy and Lakes were flanking his left hand side. Not that he could see or not that he could care. His past was glaring at his present, his present were glaring back with equal distaste.

"He probably shouldn't be crowded right now. It's ok if you three need to leave."

Murphy glared at Tim with such distaste it seemed to drip from his pores.

"We're good, thanks," he drawled. "If you three need to leave and tend to that asshole old man that could be the reason Tony's career is over, we'd be glad to hold the door for you. Oh, and if you could do me a solid, I'd appreciate it. Tell that washed up, tyrannical son of a bitch that if Tony doesn't come through this with all four limbs…I'm going to rip his from his geriatric ass body. Slowly. And with great pleasure."

His lids fluttered as the tension in the room built. Gibbs…Gibbs was alive.

"We're not leaving him," rejected Abby in that same, strange voice. It was almost dazed, thin and completely unlike her own. When someone Abby cared about was hospitalised, she became frenzied. Alarmingly so. But she just seemed…lethargic, passive even. If his muscles were fully operational, Tony would have frowned in confusion. But all he could do was lie in his own shell, unable to move or communicate. "No chance," Bishop echoed softly, as Tim slipped a gentle arm around her and Abby both. "We're staying."

Lakes made an explosive noise in his throat.

"Would you like to take a picture then? So that jackass down the hall can see who saved his miserable life? Or does he even care? Will he even care that Tony's lying in ICU with holes where soft tissue and bone used to be? Do you think he'll even ask how he is?"

Tony tried to open his eyes, his mouth, his anything.

But he couldn't.

He was still trapped.

"We're not here for him," Tim's voice answered from an oddly far off distance. He was slipping, he could feel it. "We're here for Tony; as for Gibbs… he can go to hell." Utter confusion dogged the room but it was nothing compared to the nonplussed sensation that was coursing through the patient. There was bitterness in Tim's voice he hadn't heard in a long, long time. And there was a resounding absence of indignation on Abby's part. No screech of protest, no rush to protect her precious silver fox. He couldn't see the bewildered look on Bishops and his team's faces. He was encased in blackness and his own bewilderment. His heart rate quickened as a sense of helplessness engulfed him.

Murphy recovered first, his voice oozing with sceptical derision.

"Since when do any of you people speak out against your fearless leader?"

There was a billowing silence as Tony's eyes darted around under the leaden blankets of his lids. Something was going on. He could feel it. Something other than what had put him in his bed was going on. Abby was the most pressing symptom of something amiss. Tim never spoke with such heated ire in his tone and Bishop's complete silence would indicate that she was also in the dark. Maybe it was the meds or maybe it was his natural instincts being med resistant, but Tony was unconsciously bracing himself for something bad. Something worse than the bullet pocked mess that was his chest. Something he didn't know anything about. His pulse thudded along uncomfortably as the darkness pressed. He was slipping again, no matter how desperately he clung to consciousness.

"Since that fearless leader is actually a lying, dying, piece of shit."

A bomb of shocked silence exploded into the room.

Murphy, again, recovered first.

"Say _what_ now?"

Tim's arms tightened around a gaping Bishop and a listless, pale faced Abby. "You heard me. Gibbs is dying. Terminal cancer. So we're gonna stay here with Tony, who isn't." Another gust of stunned silence swept throughout the room as his unpolished pronouncement hung in the air like wildfire. Ellie went weak at his side and he instantly regretted with intense shame the way he had blurted out the worst secret he had ever learned. He paled when he saw her face and the refusal to accept what she had heard burning in her eyes. Abby was as stiff as a rock beside him, her lips silently miming the words _terminal cancer_ over and over again.

Tony's heart pounded and pounded, the blood was rushing in his ears. He was waiting for the reasonable explanation, the clearing up of the obvious misunderstanding. He was waiting and waiting….and waiting. But the reasonable explanation and clearing up never came. The machine attached to him, one of many, began to shriek as his heart rate climbed and climbed. Panic was setting in like gangrene. He thrashed against his muscles, begged his eyelids to open, but to no avail. He lay perfectly still, perfectly imprisoned, perfectly conscious. He heard a panicked humdrum of voices above him as calls for doctors and nurses rang out.

A sudden, intense and all consuming pain suddenly shot across his chest.

And everything went dark.

When his consciousness kicked into gear again, he knew he was somewhere different. Somewhere sterile. Somewhere where the sensation in his chest, although technically unfelt due to anaesthesia, was explained by hands in his chest. Methodical, detached hands. He still couldn't open his eyes, still couldn't communicate that he was in there. That he could hear. That he could feel. A fuzzy haze of misery clung to him as words in an all too familiar voice rammed around his skull.

 _Lying, dying…._

 _Terminal cancer…._

 _Gibbs…._

The voice was drowned out by the unfamiliar timbre above him. He didn't recognise that voice. It was pleasant; he would come to remember, but clinical. "I wonder if this guy even knows," murmured the voice. "Knows what?" asked a younger medic, a female one. Tony's eyes darted around under his lids. _Knows what? What do I know? What don't I know? Is it about Gibbs?_ Panic was gripping him again. His body was his own personal prison. One he couldn't escape from. The voice was back again, dripping with professional disappointment.

"If he knows that a portion of his liver could save his colleague's life. That other agent. Agent Gibbs."

…

TBC

…


	15. Psychiatric Matters

Drowning. That's how he was going to go. A dry drowning delivered in the cocoon of his own useless body, his mind screaming for help as his bulkage lay dead in complete surrender. Through the haze of voices one became clearer. It broke through the shock, lack of comprehension and paralytic fear the gripped him. The younger voice. It was the female. The one that instantly morphed from clinically disinterested to juicily engaged. He couldn't see her, all he could see was the dark, but he was forcibly reminded of Janice in accounting. Everyone hated Janice in accounting. She gave busybodies a bad name and by the sounds of the air being sucked through gnashed teeth, clearly whoever was butchering him was her medical equivalent. Her words radiated with the apprehension of hearing first hand gossip. Even if she couldn't repeat it, she would _know_ it.

"What do you mean, Doctor?"

The practiced surgical hands stilled for a moment and Tony felt another spasm of fear at the realisation that he could still really _feel_. He could still feel everything. Not as acutely, nowhere near. He didn't feel pain per se but he certainly knew some guy who'd never even bought him a double cheese burger had his hands all up in his business. And was just casually resting them there, inside him. Like one might lean against a country gate on a sunny Sunday evening. If he ever survived this, he was going to sue. This had to be the definition of negligent infliction of emotional distress. Why wasn't he sedated? Why wasn't he swimming in lala land where things like liver transplants, Gibbs and impromptu surgery weren't a thing?

He was suing.

If he wasn't dying of course.

"I was chatting with Dr Mensen over coffee and he was asking my advice on a troublesome patient, Agent Gibbs. You know I did a double fellowship in psych?" Tony didn't need to be visually alert to imagine the chest puffing out like a prized peacock. "So naturally he came to me. Turns out, the shooting that landed both these fellas in here is the least of Agent Gibbs' worries. He has pretty advanced liver cancer, possible metastasis. He's been refusing all treatment. For months by all accounts. Funny thing is, he had an excellent survival rate had he followed the prescribed course of treatment. But he refused point blank and now Mensen is wondering if he's dealing with a case of depression which would of course allow us to declare Agent Gibbs incompetent and with a court order, force treatment. He's too far along now for the chemical route pre op, he needs a mixture of chem and operative intervention before his name can go on the transplant list." The hands were moving again but Tony's mind and heart were under so much pressure he didn't feel it this time.

"He's a pretty hard match. Bottom twentieth percentile of match likelihood. Maybe that was a factor in his decision, but…even without a transplant he could have lived a much more comfortable life for a fairly long time on a chemical regimen alone. But he refused even the most basic of pain meds. Can you imagine that? Deliberately putting yourself in pain? The only meds he would take were the concoction that allowed him to appear lucid and mobile. It was all a front from what I can see from his chart. I know we have to respect the patient's wishes and everything but it's just so… _wasteful._ And now here we are and this fellow right in front of us presents an interesting conundrum. He's a match for Agent Gibbs. He could transplant a portion of his liver that would regenerate as a full organ for Agent Gibbs and repair as a full organ for Agent DiNozzo here." The nurse must've opened her mouth to interject suddenly because a delicately arrogant cough rang out in cessation.

"Hold on Gabrielle, I'm just getting to the good part."

Obedient silence descended as a poisonous panic continued to seep into Tony's main arteries.

His heart pounded so painfully he was sure it would stop. Almost prayed it would.

"We found out quite by chance that they were a match to each other. Like I said, I was consulting with Dr Mensen and he happened to mention that there appeared to be some sort of tension between Agent Gibbs and everyone else that accompanied the two men here. I believe there are two separate federal teams at play or some such. Apparently a nurse overheard some sort of confrontation between Agent Gibbs and some other Agent and reported back to Mensen. Here's the rub, the man never even told his closest colleagues that he was dying. Dying from stupidity, or arrogance or depression…who knows. Dying from his own personal choice anyway. There was this big blow up and it became quite clear that DiNozzo didn't even know Gibbs was sick but that they used to be real close. But not anymore. Soon after, Gibbs tries to _off_ himself and then this guy goes into tachy and bottoms out on us. Weird right?"

He laughed as if that would accentuate just how very weird the whole situation was.

"So anyways, when I'm prepping to come in and save this guy I notice his blood type. AB positive. I remembered seeing the same on Gibbs' chart and being glad I didn't have the headache of trying to find a liver for him. Then the odds hit me and while the anaesthesiologist was prepping this fella, I ran through the differential with Mensen. Provided the tests that we would normally carry out would pan out, those two are a perfect match. So, long story short, a piece of this guy's liver would save Mensen's guy even with the delay in treatment. But, apparently they now hate each other and this DiNozzo guy is holier than Jesus with all these gunshots so surgery would be a hell'va complicated thing. Would most probably save Gibbs but could quite possibly kill DiNozzo." The nurse forced out the obligatory intake of breath, her eyes round as saucers. Her voice was high pitched and perfectly horrified.

"So…cliff note version. This Gibbs and DiNozzo were like besties and whatnot, but now they like totally hate each other? And Gibbs is dying from a treatable illness, told no one but now everyone knows. And DiNozzo could save him. But to do so would put his life on the line. But we also can't even tell him about it for him to make a call, because we'd be violating the privilege between you, Mensen and Gibbs?"

A grave nod was offered.

"In a nutshell."

When hospital Janice spoke again, her voice was thick with confusion. "But the rumour mill was that this DiNozzo dude threw himself in front of those bullets for this Gibbs dude? Everyone's talking about it, what with him being so handsome and all. Why would he jump in front of a gun for a man that he hates and who didn't even tell him that he was sick? Didn't even tell him the most important secret of his entire life? It doesn't make sense."

Another grave nod was offered.

"The mind is a complicated thing, human relationships even more so. As I'm double certified-"

"Yeah," hospital Janice interrupted, not interested in a self loving sonnet, "But shouldn't someone find a way to tell him? DiNozzo?" She pointed at the motionless figure before them, the rest of the surgical team indifferent to what was going on around them. "Don't you think that he has the right to know that the person he took bullets for could be saved? By him? Seems to me that whatever is going on between those two there's still some pretty strong feelings there. I think he'd want to know. There must be some way to let him know he could save his friends life?"

Several eyes were on hospital Janice, some rolling, some politely indifferent.

"There is no way."

The firm rebuff was unyielding. The hands were doing something complex now and the sensation was desperately unsettling but Tony couldn't even feel it. He was feeling so much. He was feeling too much to know what he was feeling. It was like being stuck in a motionless yet thunderous tornado and he couldn't even get out of his own way. "This man can never know, not unless Agent Gibbs is informed and chooses to relay that information himself. To do anything else would open the hospital to intense liability. Besides, we don't even know if Gibbs is going to survive his attempted OD." There was a deep silence then as Tony lay in the darkness. Never more alone, never more afraid, never more betrayed.

A door suddenly swooshed open and all heads turned to it in tandem.

Dr Mensen was harried, beads of stressed perspiration popping at the base of his temples. Keeping a safe distance away, his voice was muffled from behind his own surgical mask. The one that had been hovering over Gibbs, working diligently to keep him alive. "Dr Patterson?" he interrupted loudly, "What is the status of your patient?" A brief silence ensued as monitors were quickly analysed and natural intuition was utilised. "Pushing towards stable but not out of the woods yet. He had a tachy incident, we're just trying to get it under control." He frowned. "But his heart rate is still erratic. If I didn't know any better I'd say he was having a panic attack but he is of course sedated, so nothing is definite yet. Why?"

Dr Mensen swallowed and walked further into the room. "My patient, Gibbs? The complications from the OD are extensive. It's exacerbated his condition to an untold degree. His liver was already showing signs of severe compromise but it's totally shutting down now. Toxin levels are through the roof. Long story short, if he doesn't get a transplant donation in the next three to four days…he's going to die here. And you know what the biggest rub is?" He walked another inch into the room and looked down at Tony with a tortured expression, uncharacteristic for the usually reserved and detached doctor.

"I've just had a call. He knew. Gibbs? He knew."

He glanced down at the pounding chest and shook his head in frustration.

"He knew all along that DiNozzo was a perfect match. A perfect, one in a million, god damned match."

….

TBC

…


	16. Life Matters

A single weeks passing had brought with it an unseasonal dip in the weather and all those who hustled and bustled into the hospital entered laden down with snow tinged boots and sodden hair. The cold air seemed to billow around the corridors and turn the attitudes of even the most professional of professionals, a little icier. Such was the condition of two chillingly angry doctors as they argued in low voices as they swept through the sterile halls. The doctor attached to Tony rapidly turning blue in the face from arguing with the doctor attached to Gibbs, Dr Mensen. But their words were caught in their throats as their white coats whipped behind them as they rounded a sharp right corner. The electronic glass pane door hid no secrets and the subjects of their heated disagreement were sharply presented from where they stood, gazing in. Tony, pale and yet green tinged, sat in the visitor's chair. His mobile IV was diligently placed beside him and he did not appear to be in any outward discomfort. Gibbs, for his part and for it was his room, slumbered on as he had been for the last seven days in his ICU bed, apparently unaware of his bedside guest.

Dr Mensen growled.

"Did you do this?" he accused Dr Patterson bluntly. "Your patient has only been mobile for a few hours and he's already found his way into my patient's room? Did you tell him he was free to roam the halls? Aren't you in the least concerned about his sutures?" Holding his hands up defensively, Dr Patterson shook his head. "Don't be ridiculous, of course I didn't. We only have so many nurses and I can't justify placing a single one on guard duty for crying out loud. Besides, his sutures are holding firm on account of him being laid up in bed for a week. They're fine. There's no rule against patients' visiting each other when we don't have contamination concerns, so what's your problem? They clearly have a history so why don't we just leave them at it and when they make up their own minds; it will settle our little…difference of opinion. Everyone wins."

Staring into the room, Dr Mensen could feel the unresolved issues within it and nodded his head.

Tony watched the two bickering doctors leave in a state of apathetic fatigue. Everything he owned, hurt. Places, body parts…he'd never even known he possessed, ached. The slow walk to Gibbs' room had taken it out of him and he'd spent the last twenty minutes getting his breath back. The hospital gown around him itched uncomfortably but he took no notice. His eyes flickered between Gibbs' lifeless form and the large, loudly ticking clock that was mounted on the wall. A morbid realisation had him. That clock was literally counting down the minutes that Gibbs had left to live. He knew that much if nothing else. He'd forced Tim to tell him everything yesterday. His doctor had point blank refused to answer his snapped questions about Gibbs' condition but he knew what he had heard, though he wisely kept that information to himself.

Gibbs was dying, but he could save him.

A cold smile played about his lips as he continued to mull over that concise synopsis he'd created. The headache that had formed from the intense pressure he'd put into trying to understand continued to burn, as he continued to try and understand. Gibbs was dying, but why hadn't he told him? He didn't need to be a doctor to know that his old boss had received his prognosis a long time ago. So why, in all that time, hadn't he told him? Hadn't told anyone? It didn't make sense. Gibbs wasn't a big sharer, sure, but keeping a death sentence a secret? After he had fought to survive the ship shooting? It just didn't make sense. And the investigator in Tony knew that when something didn't make sense, it was because he didn't have the full picture. That there was more to be uncovered. What he did know raced around his skull in a never ending, demonic loop. He was glad that both his former and current teams had had no choice but to return to their posts due to their active and shared investigation.

It gave him the time to just think.

Gibbs changed, only towards him, in and around the time of his coming back to work from the ship shooting. Since he had nearly lost his life at the hands of a pint sized assailant. Had he known then? Was that when he found out that there was an executioners axe teetering above his head? Maybe. But, why him? Why only change towards him? Why freeze _him_ out, treat _him_ like garbage, drive _him_ away? The only difference he could think of, between him and the rest of the team, was that he had always been the most dispensable. Gibbs had never treated him with the same respect he showed to Tim or the devout reverence he showered on Abby or even with the burgeoning affection he sprinkled on Bishop. Not to mention the unshakeable relationships he'd had with Ziva and Kate. But somewhere along the line, he'd learned to accept that.

Learned that Gibbs simply couldn't accept him in the same way he did the others, and that had been ok. He had learned to accept that as being ok. So, was that it? Was that why he was chosen? Gibbs couldn't deal with his own mortality and so he needed to lash out, and he was there, his ever cowing whipping boy. That made sense. Tony winced in pain as the itch from his heavily clad wounds became nearly unbearable, but not as unbearable as what was in his head. Maybe there was a different reason, or an additional one. That made more sense. Gibbs rarely did things for one reason and one reason alone, there were usually parallel lines to be drawn. And the most obvious parallel that his brain had clutched onto was that…

 _Gibbs had known._

The cruel twist of fate that had perhaps been the catalyst that had torn them apart and yet continued to link them by the most tenuous of threads? Gibbs had known about it. A portion of his liver could save him, and so, the man had driven him away. Far from asking for his help, he had hidden the most damning of all facts from him like a miser protecting his wealth. Hadn't let him in, had refused to even offer him the option of offering his help. Not that it would've been an option. Had he known…had Gibbs come to him, before things had turned bad, he wouldn't have hesitated. But now…now could he say the same thing? Looking at the rising and falling chest before him, Tony felt nothing. He felt nothing but an odd sense of empty hatred. Gibbs had hidden all this from him, so why should he help now? Not that he was asking, or would accept, but why should he? In the cold light of day, Tony saw what he had done in the field as the actions of a man who was holding onto the past even though that past was toxic. He had nearly died in holding onto that past, and he would have died not knowing what had turned Gibbs against him. What had destroyed the one relationship he held most dear.

Gibbs was toxic, he could see that now.

So why was he sitting by his bedside like a worried friend, a trusted confidant? He was none of those things. He had been used and abused for thirteen years before Gibbs had watched him go without a second's thought. Before he had snapped and jumped before he was pushed. He ought to be happy now. He had his own team, something he'd wanted for years and years. But he wasn't. Because he couldn't move on. Because he needed answers, deserved answers. Suddenly, a hot fork of anger sparked within him and he found himself staggering to his feet, clutching the IV's metal pole for support. Gibbs wasn't in a medicated sleep anymore, the nurse said he would wake in his own time. But he was sick of waiting for Gibbs to do things in his own time and he was sick of marching to the old egomaniac's beat.

Reaching out, he roughly shook the sleeping patient's shoulder, not caring if he hurt him in the least.

Spluttering somewhat, even though the tubes in his throat had been removed, Gibbs blinked sleepily into consciousness. Tony shook again, harder still and the blue eyes that were not the piercing orbs they had once been slowly shook off their eyelid blankets. Gibbs, who was already pale, went an ashen hue of white as he slowly registered the man standing about him. "Tony…you're…are you…" He paled even further as Tony pressed sharply upon his shoulder blade, his green eyes flashing. "Don't," he spat, "Don't you _dare_ ask me if I'm ok. I'm going to ask the questions for a change and if you ever gave a shit about me you're going to answer them. I deserve the truth, Gibbs, after all I've done for you the very least I deserve is the damned truth."

He removed his hand then, leaning against his IV for support.

"Let's start with something nice and easy then, shall we? Something that shouldn't be too much of a bother to answer. Let's start with… _how long did you know I could save your life and why the hell didn't you tell me about it?"_ He fell silent then, sharply silent as Gibbs struggled to sit up in the bed. He didn't reach out a hand to help him, those days were gone, instead he watched coldly as the effort of movement shot across the old man's face. "Tony," he panted, "Don't do this. Just leave, would ya? Go. I…you've given me…." He shook his head, turning green with the effort. "Leave. There's nothing left to say to each other. Thanks for saving my life and all that, much appreciated. If I can ever return the favour out in the field someday, I will. Until then, you have your life and I have….mine, and we should both keep to our sides of the fence. Go. And don't ever come back."

Tony stared, even after everything that had happened, unable to believe his ears.

Gibbs stared back at him, breaking into a million pieces inside, but turning colder than ice on the outside. "Go," he repeated. "Go before I call the nurse. We're bowing out of the investigation, my team. I'll assign another MCRT. There's no reason for us to ever cross paths again. Leave. Now. Go to your team, they'll be needing you. I don't. I don't need you and I don't want you. So go. For the love of God just fucking go." He fell back on the pillows then, the exertion of the lies that burst from him in icy tones proving too much. For his part, Tony was experiencing the basement brawl that had cost them everything all over again. The hurt, betrayal and rejection were as fresh as ever as he stared down at the man he had once loved in a way neither could understand, but was no unrecognisable even to his eyes. A geyser of pain erupted in his chest as he squeakily moved the IV stand into action. Glancing down for the last time, his usually bright green eyes gave one last flicker before they iced over in a dead glow.

"You were everything to me. I would have done anything for you, anything. I'd have given my life for yours in a heartbeat. But you turned on me. And you never told me why. You turned on no one else, just me….just good old me…." He moved slowly towards the door, as Gibbs turned his head to the window, hiding his face from view. There was silence then as the doors swooshed open and Tony loitered within their chasm, his voice constricting the unresolved pain that dogged him day in and day out. He looked at the man who refused to look at him, and so he did not see. He did not see, or know, that the once great Leroy Jethro Gibbs was crying. That tears were running as fast as they were silent down his face, dripping onto the cheap cotton pillowcase underneath him. The last words he uttered before leaving the room tore into Gibbs' every fibre, and although the tears remained silent, they burned with years of regret and disappointment as the words of the man who had been everything to him leeched into his brain.

"Boss, why me?"

…..

A/N: TBC

(Stuck in yet another commute, no time to proof read this before I lose signal. Will edit where necessary later. Inks)

….


	17. Revelations

"Dead," Dr Mensen announced, with just the right amount of dramatic flair. "I mean as in _dead_ , dead," he added, as though there was a rising scale of deadness and Gibbs was in danger of catching a particularly bad bout. "In one to two days, tops. He's surpassed expectations in staying alive this long, I personally have come to the conclusion that he's too stubborn to die. But he will, eventually, he will. I am seriously overstepping my bounds here and feel absolutely free to report me to the administration, but I can't stand by and watch my patient die from stupidity. I know I'm being unprofessional, this is the most unprofessional thing I have ever done, but you have to go back and talk to him. He's…there's a lot going on under the surface, Mr DiNozzo, and you have to go back there and talk to him. His life depends upon it." Tony stared, his eyes cold, a mere five feet from Gibbs' room. That's as far as he'd gotten before being halted in his staggering steps.

"It's Agent DiNozzo."

"Yes of course, my apologies, Agent DiNozzo," said Dr Mensen, reminded forcibly of his patient's maddening insistences on being addressed by his professional title. "But please think on what I have said. I will say no more and leave you to your thoughts and like I indicated, feel free to report me. I have never done anything like this before but…" his eyes cast over to the direction of Gibbs' room, "I've never had a patient like Mr Gibbs." He shook his head and corrected himself before Tony could. "Agent Gibbs, I mean Agent Gibbs." With that, he gave a professional if slightly haggard nod of his head and swept down the corridor, his white coat billowing out behind him. Watching him go and leaning on his mobile IV stand for support, Tony for the first time in his life, felt old.

Really damned old.

His head was still turned into the wall as he shuffled back through the doors, his movements and gait stilted. Assuming he was a maddening nurse, Gibbs kept his head stiffly tuned upon the wall, the tears that had spilled on Tony's departure having dried into stale tracks upon his face. Sitting down with a grunt of pain, the entrant cleared his throat pointedly. Rolling his eyes and mistaking the visitor for that imbecilic Dr Mensen, Gibbs sat up straight as a rod with a glower on his face. Shock quickly replaced the anger as he stared at Tony, mouth agape. "I thought I told you to leave?" he barked, quickly conjuring up his defensive strategy, feeling the energy seeping like a leech from him in the process.

Tony inclined his head.

"You did, but here I am. I am not leaving. I don't know if I'm unconsciously masochistic, or I have long term Stockholm Syndrome, but I'm not leaving. I asked you…what seems like a lifetime ago now, in your basement, why it had come to this, and then I convinced myself I didn't need to know. But I do, Gibbs, I do need to know. I need to move on from this. I need closure. I need to know what went wrong. I need to know why you would rather die than ask for my help. I need to know why you hid your illness from me, when you knew I could save your life. I need to know why you hate me so much that you would rather lose your life than have anything to do with me." His throat constricted, the enormity of the past few months weighing and piling in, "I need to know what I did wrong, to make you hate me this much. Please, Gibbs…at least give me that?"

It was an act, and it was a damned good one.

Tony had been Gibbs' student for a long, long time. And in being so, had learned as much about the man teaching him the job as the job itself. As the years had gone by, he'd had less and less to learn about the job but more and more to learn about the man. And if there was one thing that would set him off, it was self pity. And when he got mad, he got truthful. There was no time to pussyfoot around anymore, if that Dr Mensen was to believed. Time was something that Gibbs didn't have. He carefully sculpted his face into that of wounded pleading as the elder man cast a look at him, his knees drawn up to his chest. In that moment, it really struck Tony that Gibbs looked nothing more than a frail old man, lying in a sickly state in some sterile dump of a hospital. But apparently, he remained sharp.

"You think I don't know when you figured out that little trick of yours, DiNozzo?"

Tony blinked.

"What trick?" Smirking a shadow of his former smirk and wincing as the effort bit at him, Gibbs shook his head. "The one you figured out on the DuPont case, about six years ago. The one where you deliberately try and work me up by putting on that damned puppy look of yours so I'll get so mad I can't help but shout out some truths. But stellar job on the acting, I'd almost believe it. Tony…would you just go would ya? There's no point in you sticking around here for this. Go, look after your team. That's your job now. They need you, I don't." Tony felt his heart ice over. "They don't need a piece of my liver to stay alive. You do. And you've known that you do for the longest time. I'm guessing since your hospitalisation from the ship shooting? That's when they found the cancer, isn't it? And that's when they searched for possible donors and I, being an organ donor with my details in the system, appeared as a one in a…whatever it is, match. A perfect match. I know I might not be perfect in life but I _am_ a perfect match. And you knew about it, and didn't tell me. Didn't even give me the chance to make my own mind up and it was around then you turned on me. Why?"

Gibbs let out a long, painful breath.

"Damnit, Tony, would you leave it alone? We've said all we had to say to each other. There is no going back from where we are now, even if I had all the time in the world. You need to move on from me. From everything to do with me. You need to stop asking why and just move the hell on. People change, life changes. You need to get used to that and stop asking why all the damned time. There is no why, alright? There is no "why" about me getting shot by that kid. There is no "why" about me dying from cancer and there is no "why" about why I chose to keep my personal business, personal. There is no damn why. So stop asking for one and just go, live your life. Now. You need to go and start living your life _now."_

Tony merely shook his head, an odd calmness descending upon him.

"No, I need to do what's best for me. And I get to determine what's best for me, not you. And if I determine that knowing why is what's best for me, the least you can do is give it to me. After all I've given you, that's the very least that you can give me. I don't care if I have to hear it on your dying breath, I'll sit here until I hear it." Gibbs grimaced in ire that his body didn't have the stamina to support. He turned his head an inch more to glare at his once-upon-a-time right hand man, and found to his immense shame, that the tears weren't far off again. Closing his eyes and racking in a breath that caused his lungs to scream in pain, he thought deeply. He didn't have much time left and his biggest regret was staring him in the face, offering him the opportunity of full disclosure. He cracked. In that moment, he caved. The minute the decision was made, his eyes were enervated with a hint of his old steeliness as he locked eyes with a patiently and mutely staring Tony.

"You want to know why I 'turned' on you?"

The younger agent nodded immediately.

"I do."

Gibbs chewed his lip and broke eye contact, staring down at the thin blanket that covered his knees. When he spoke, it was almost as if he were explaining things to himself, not to Tony. His voice was thin and wispy, nothing like his own. His shoulders caved with the effort of his unburdening and the lines of his face seemed to etch a little deeper. Knowing that this was in all likelihood, the last conversation he would ever had with the man that was once his strongest relationship, Gibbs picked his words out carefully.

Something he was far from accustomed to.

"When I woke up in the hospital after Luke had shot me, it felt like I was dead. Everything hurt, everything was slow and every time I closed my eyes I could still see that kid standing over me. His face gets all mixed up with Kelly's, and his voice get's all mixed up with Shannon's. I made the mistake of thinking I knew how to handle that boy and it nearly cost me my life. I was shot, nearly fatally, by a _kid._ Just when I get my head around that, they come and sit down on my bed with that look that lets you know things aren't good, that doctor look. They tell me I'm lucky to be alive and that I will heal in time, but they found something in my liver that concerned them during my op. So while I was out, they investigated. Cancer. Aggressive, but relatively early. Best treatment plan, a partial, living transplantation. Doctor told me that in a way, I was lucky the kid shot me. Otherwise it would have gone undetected and it would have been too late. They tell me they ran my…whatever you call it through their systems looking for a donor and low and behold, can you believe it, they found one."

He swallowed.

"Anthony DiNozzo, a perfect match. That's what they tell me. As if I should be delighted. As if I should be _thrilled_ to ask you to risk your life for mine, again. They tell me they were waiting till I woke up to contact you. I told them not to. I told them I would sue them all the way back to the stone age if they tried. They hummed and hawed and mewled. Said I was killing myself. Brought in some fancy ass shrink who told me I had PTSD. I've had PTSD, I served, and I know what it's like. I didn't have PTSD. I just didn't have the _will_ anymore. So then they bring in a different fancy ass shrink who tells me I'm depressed. I've had depression, and I know what it's like. I didn't have depression. I just didn't _care_ anymore. I'm not young anymore, Tony. I'm not a young man. That survival instinct, that living at all costs gene, that fades a bit when you get to my age and you don't have a woman, children and grandchildren to live for. So, yeah, I told them not to call you. Live transplantation has serious risks. It can kill. You're not an old man, you still have a reason to live. Life is enough of a reason for you to keep on living."

He continued to speak to the blanket, but sensing that Tony's eyes were bulging.

"All I wanted to do was to get back to work. I didn't want this treatment and that treatment, wires hanging out of me here, there and everywhere. I just wanted to get back to work and do as much as I could, whilst I still could. I passed their stupid psych evaluation and with time, their physical evaluation. I was warned and warned that by doing nothing, I was signing my own death warrant. And that was fine by me, as long as I could do some more good first. So time goes by and I eventually make it back to NCIS, back to the job. But everything's different. Everyone's different, and yet everything and everyone is the same. It's me, I'm different. But I can't see that. My first day back and all I can see is…you. You in my place, you directing my team, you being me and doing a fine job of it."

He scrubbed a hand across his eyes.

"And I took back the reins. You handed them over without a second thought, delighted I was back. But you knew I wasn't who I was, you all did. I saw the way you looked at me, the way you all looked at me. Like I was an accident waiting to happen. I chalked that up, told myself it was to be expected. But it carried on, in a way none of you were even aware. I'd give an order, and Tim…Bishop, they'd look at _you_ instead of me. They'd look at you for the nod, for the go ahead. And you gave it, without even realising you were giving it. I might have been back, I might have been the boss again but I wasn't really. You were, they looked to you. Abby treated me like a frail child, directing the more…gruesome reports to you. Everyone was looking to you. It was as if I were there as a figurehead and nothing else. And I was slower in the field because everything ached. You knew that and you took the lead, putting yourself in the positions I'd always held. I was flanking you, not the other way around."

He looked up at the sterile white walls and smiled a twisted smile of regret.

"And…I began to resent you, Tony. It was as if you were taking the last thing I had left away from me. And you were doing it with a damned smile. The more and more time went on, the more and more the team still looked to you. Tim would run ideas past you and not me. Ellie would ask questions from you and not me. I…well I guess I was jealous. I knew my time was running out and my dying wish as it were, was to run my team for as long as I could and there you were, running it from the backseat. So I started freezing you out. I focussed on Bishop, on training her, on teaching her everything I could whilst I still could. Tim, I've taught nearly everything I can teach, but I focussed on him too. Anything and anyone but you. I was chewed up with anger about Luke, about the cancer, about everything. And you…you were there. You were an easy target. You gave me an outlet because I convinced myself you were taking what was mine and all that I had left, so why not give you hell?"

The effort of his own admission was beginning to show on Gibbs' pale face, but he ploughed on.

"Then, I started getting mad about things that weren't even job related. There you were, on my six for thirteen or more years, and you hadn't moved. You hadn't moved a single rung up the ladder. I convinced myself then that my rage for you was actually for your benefit. I was trying to push you out of the nest, force you to better yourself. I was doing it for you. But I wasn't, not really. All I saw was the possibilities that lay in front of you and the ruins that lay behind me. You could be anything you wanted, you're young. Wife, kids, better job…the works. And I couldn't. All I could have was what was left and you were in the way of that. I…started to hate you, I did. You could have had anything but all you seemed to want was the one thing I could have. The team, the job. At first, I didn't tell you about the cancer or the transplant because I didn't want to risk your life, or hurt you. But as time went on, I guess…I got a savage satisfaction in having something you didn't know about, couldn't take, or alter."

He laughed then, a terrifying empty sound.

"How sick is that? I was nearly happy to have cancer simply because you didn't know about it. It was like having one thing that was still mine, even if was killing me. But I knew you'd figure things out eventually. No matter what's happened between us, you really are the best young agent I have ever worked with. So I needed you gone, and I needed you gone fast. So I kept pushing and pushing. You held firm. Jesus did you hold firm. As I felt myself getting weaker and weaker I thought you'd never go. By that time, I was so invested in hating you, in blaming you, that I couldn't wait to see the back of you. It wasn't about protecting you anymore, it was about protecting myself. I pushed harder and you eventually snapped. It took a hell of a lot longer than it should have, but you're as loyal as they come aren't you? So that night, when you came to my basement, I should have been relieved, right? I had finally gotten what I wanted."

He shook his head, aging another ten years in the process.

"But I wasn't. When you handed me that letter of resignation, it's like a switch flipped in my head. A truth switch. I saw that all the times you took the lead, it's because you were trying to help me. I saw that the way you had kept the team together wasn't an attempt to take what was mine, but you doing the job I'd trained you to do. But it was too late then, wasn't it? The damage was done. I'd kicked you one too many a time and that made me angrier than ever, because I couldn't face it. Couldn't face what I'd done to you, to us. I knew there was no going back, so I lashed out. Clever, right? I've come close to strangling you over the years Tony, but to actually…physically…attack you like I did? There's no coming back from that, even if I had all the time in the world. Because that moment, in the basement, was the time to tell you all this. Not now, whilst I'm wasting away in this damned bed like an invalid. But then. But I didn't because I'm a coward. I couldn't face what I'd done over the past nearly two years, so I got angry. Can't feel guilt if all you feel is anger, the coward's equation."

He fiddled with where his first wedding ought to be.

"Story of my life I guess."

Even if Tony had been capable of speech in that moment, he wouldn't have had the chance.

"So, in summary. I got shot, I got cancer. You were my lifeline, but I worried it would kill you. The risks are massive. So I said no. I'd simply live the rest of my life on my terms, surrounded by you lot. But anger is a festering disease. I was angry at the world and when I came back to was left of _my_ world, it seemed there wasn't enough room for you and I in it. One of us had to go, and I decided in all my stupid wisdom that it had to be you. You were everything I was and everything I couldn't be and I hated you for it. Now I'm dying and my biggest regret is knowing that I tried to destroy the one person who's been there for me, through thick and thin, since the day he knocked me on my ass in a filthy Baltimore alley. I guess death put things in perspective, makes some of the rules you've lived by your whole life seem…irrelevant." He finally turned to look at Tony, who was paler than he had ever seen him in his entire life. "There's something you should know," he murmured, feeling weariness dog him like a thick smog. "Something I should have told you a long, long time ago. Something I know won't help, nothing can, but something I need to tell you before it's too late."

He slumped back on the thin pillows, his face draining of all colour but his voice still audible.

"I'm sorry, Tony."

…..

A/N: Question: I could wrap this up in one more chapter, or I could carry on for a few more with a view to exploring where Tony and Gibbs go from here. Preferences?

Lemme know

(This is just my take/explanation for how Gibbs treated Tony, I know everyone has their own, this is just mine!)

_Inks

…...


	18. Chapter 18

He was famed, perhaps infamously so, for his witty repertoire and his glib come-back remarks. But for the first time in a long, long time, Tony was utterly speechless. Machines beeped lazily between both mentor and protégé, but not a single word or syllable was uttered. Gibbs, for his part, was exhausted from the fiery hold his disease held upon him and even more so from his cathartic release. Tony was just plain stunned. This is what he'd wanted. For the longest time, clarity was what he had craved. He had imagined all sorts of reasons for Gibbs' treatment of him post-Luke. But never once had the reason been so mundane as _jealousy._ His eyes widened perceptibly as he stared down at the visibly shrunken frame that was once the proud man, the Marine. He had idolised this man. He had revered him. He had done everything in his power to emanate him, to be him. And now it had all come to some form of twisted full circle. Now he was the strong one, and Gibbs the weak. Now he was the one to be, and Gibbs the one to replicate.

The green eyes fluttered shut for a moment, worn down by the onslaught of revelations.

"You're sorry?"

The words were out of his mouth, carried on the tongue of a cold, biting undertone. His head was snapping up before he could stop it and his fists balling to his sides before he could calm them. "You're sorry?" he spat, "That's what you have to say to me? After all this time, after everything we've been through, after everything we've done for each other and all you have to offer is _you're sorry?_ Are you kidding me?" Though he could ill afford to do so, Tony heaved himself to his feet, his sudden upsurge of agitation not amenable to being seated. Clutching his mobile IV stand for support, he glared down at the man who could blink feebly up at him. "You chose this. You decided this. You looked after you, and the hell to the rest of us. And you know what the sickest thing is? I'd still do it. I would still go under that knife to give you whatever you needed to survive. But you're too proud for that, aren't you? You'd literally rather die than admit you're just a _guy._ Just a plain old guy, like me or Tim or Ducky. That you're not some sort of fucking God. Because that's what you've clung to all your life, since I've known you at least. Your job and your reputation. You never showed up to collect your medals on the job, but you were always the man who knew he had them. Always the man who was job first, everything else second."

He heaved in a dizzying breath.

"And that was fine, maybe, when you were younger. And it was fine when you just had employees for a team. But me? Tim? Abbs and Duck, Jimmy? We're not your damned _employees._ How many Christmases' have we all spent together? How many thanksgivings? And yet you think you can lay there after kicking dirt in my eyes and say, oh, hey…I know that was bad but _I'm sorry?_ The bottom line is that you chose your damned pride over me. I have risked my life for you, I have decimated my personal life for you, I have lied, cheated and stolen for you. I have done everything you have ever asked of me and then some. And you, when it mattered the most, decided you knew best for me. You decided that I wasn't smart enough, or brave enough to make my own decisions. You can say you were doing it for me, but you were being a coward. You were afraid of needing help and you were afraid I'd say no. You might have forgotten this, but I know you. Well, to a degree. I know you'd literally rather die than ask for help on the off chance you might be refused. Because that would be too _human_ for you, wouldn't it? Too mundane for the great and mighty god damned Gibbs!"

"Tony-"

"You don't get to say you're sorry! You don't get to lay there all…all broken and frail and tell me that you're sorry. You ruined my life, Gibbs. I don't care how dramatic that sounds, because you did. I stayed up night after night wondering what I did wrong. Racking my brain as to how I screwed up. I watched as you mentored Bishop the way you did me, and at the same time act like I didn't exist when I was right under your nose. I held my tongue when you put me down time and time again in front of the team. I bit my lip when you froze me out of cases, potentially damaging my career in the process. I said nothing when you treated Tim as though he were your SFA and I was dead and gone."

"Tony, I-"

"Two years. You had two years to tell me. Two years to confide in me. I've trusted you with every screwed-up piece of shit that's come my way. I've racked in your house when I couldn't face my empty apartment for another night. I turned to you when Jeanne left, when E.J. left, when…Ziva, I turned to you. I trusted you. When I had the plague, it was your house I stayed in when I got out of the hospital. And after all that, you freeze me out of the one thing you had no business freezing me out of. You and your rules, always harping on about how we're a team and how we're family. That's a crock of shit. You don't do this to family. You don't even do this to your enemy. You were jealous of me? Do you realise how sick that is? I did my job. I did what you trained me to do. I took over, just like I did when you took your little sabbatical to Mexico. I stepped up and I took care of the people you walked out on and I stepped to the side the minute you decided to walk back in. I did everything I should and could have done and I did it without a word of complaint."

"Listen to me, Tony, you need to-"

"So, don't you _dare_ lie there, hooked up to all these machines like you're the tragic lead in some pathetic movie, the stoic hero, and tell me you're _sorry_. You didn't crash my car, you didn't ruin my favourite shirt…you messed with my head. You took the last thirteen years' worth of loyalty and threw it back in my face. You're right. I've never moved up the ladder. And you know why? It's because of you. What other SFA would have you? Have you ever asked yourself that? You think I'd leave Tim and Abbs to your mercy? You know all the times you've concussed me over the years because I was _goofing off?_ Did it ever occur to you, that all those times happened when you were in one of your tempers? That maybe I was just trying to deflect your attention away from lambasting Tim in the middle of the bull pen, or from snapping at Abbs or Ducky for results they couldn't possibly have? Did it ever occur to you that the reason you focussed most of your anger on me over the years is because I made it so? To protect them, from you?"

"Tony-"

"If I'd taken that Rota gig all those years ago, who knows where I'd be now, what I'd have accomplished. Maybe I'd have a wife, if I wasn't at your beck and call, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Maybe I'd have a kid, if I wasn't too busy serving your every whim, fancy and mood swing. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. I guess we'll never know. But what I do know and it's for damned sure, it's that you don't get to treat me like the lowest of the low, the dirt on your shoe for two years and then expect me to weep over you because _you're sorry._ I deserve better than that. Maybe I haven't always been able to see that. It's hard to see your own self-worth when you're under your shadow, Gibbs. Real damned hard. But I can see it now. I'm a good Agent, and I'm a good person. I gave you everything I had and more. And I never asked for anything in return. And I never really got anything in return. But the one thing and I mean the _one_ thing I thought I could always count on you for, was the truth. But it turns out you don't even rate me enough as colleague, let alone a friend to give me that much."

"Look, Tony-"

"The hell with you Gibbs. You hear me? The hell with you. But I'll make this real simple for you. Unlike you, I can't switch off my feelings, I'm not a robot. I'm not like you. And even though I should, I don't want to see you die. I'll give you the answer to the question you should have asked me two years ago. Yes. Yes, I will donate a part of my liver to save you, to save your life. No matter what has happened between us…I can't forget how it used to be. How you used to be, how we used to be. So, the answer is yes. But I will not give you my forgiveness. I don't have it to give. Not now, maybe not ever. But I do have this to give, this warning. If you do not accept, if you don't agree to the operation that will save your life…you and I are as done as two people can ever be. You will never see me again, I will not attend your funeral. Your name will never pass my lips again. I will erase you, I will bury you in my mind. You will have never existed to me."

He grasped the IV pole and pivoted it to guide his exit from the room of revelation, exhausted from his long speech.

"That's my price, Gibbs. That's the price for my potential forgiveness. Your life. I will not forgive a dead man, I will not mourn a dead man that didn't need to die. Of that, I'm certain. For the first time …it's not you that calls the shots. It's me. You either live and we see where we go from there, or you die and everything about you will be gone from my mind in the time it takes for your last heartbeat to finish out. I mean what I say and I say what I mean, a little lesson I've learned recently. So…you let me know what you want to do. But if your decision is to die with your pride intact and the lives of those who cared about you in tatters, then you'll die a coward. You'll die a pathetic, proud old man. You choose to live and try and rebuild what you've torn down…then at least you'll die a man who tried. But like I said, it's up to you. I've given you all I have to give. Your Doctor knows where I am when you've made your decision."

He pushed himself to the door, a shocked and silent Gibbs in his wake.

Twisting in the frame for a moment, Tony licked his dry lips and shook his head sadly.

"For the most part, you've lived your life as an honourable man. Don't die a coward. You've done me enough damage, don't make the last decade and more of my life as having been in the service of a weak man. You want to apologise to me? Then you stay alive to do it. You don't give me a deathbed confessional. I deserve more, I'm worth more. You want to make amends? Then get out of that goddamned bed and make them. Because if you don't…"

He walked from the room and called the last words over his shoulder in parting shot of ice.

"I'll go to my own grave hating you a little more each day."

…

TBC

…..


	19. Chapter 19

The first thing he was aware of was an excruciating pain.

It bit into his side and worked its way up and around his ribs, lashing into his torso waspishly. But he could tell it had been medicated down. The fuzzy quality of his brain a tell-tale sign of pain meds hard at work. His eyes flickered open slowly, feebly. The familiar scent of sharp antiseptic shot up his nose and he grimaced in disgust. A blurry figure moved about in front of him, a solid block of white. Quiet murmurs came from the block as a fleshy pin-prick that he supposed to be a hand, shot over and across a chart relentlessly.

He tried to inhale a deep breath but stopped rapidly when it made him feel dizzily naseuas.

The small splutter he must have made was enough to draw the attention of the white block upon him like white on rice. A warm hand suddenly seized his shoulder whilst an offensively bright light was shoved into his eyes, one at a time. Hands grabbed, prodded and poked him without compunction. The hand scribbled even more furiously across the chart as a hand was raised, with two fingers shooting out like cannons. He blinked fuzzily up at them, and took a rather gormless moment to realise their point. His voice was crackly, throaty but it was audible and relatively clear.

"Two."

It even came out in his trademark grunt. The one that said _I have better things to be doing right now._

Dr Mensen beamed.

"Agent Gibbs," he said loudly, slowly, almost as if speaking to a small and rather confused child. "You came through the surgery like a trooper. Your vitals are strong and climbing and our initial tests appear to show a clean incision of the tumour, nothing left behind. You're on a strong dose of chemotherapy as a precautionary measure to target any cells that may be too immaturely mutated to show up on our scans and you'll stay on that course of treatment until your bloods come back and tell us what we're dealing with. Your body has begun to accept the partial liver transplant during the time you've been out and our hope is that it will begin to regenerate in two to three weeks. If it regenerates at a significant enough pace, you won't need an additional transplant. We won't know for sure until then what your prognosis is, but as of now, I'm hopeful."

Gibbs blinked slowly, not understanding a single word of what the man had just said.

Because he was too busy thinking of someone else, beginning to panic about someone else.

"Tony," he blurted, "Tony…where is he…. how is he?"

A slight frown punctured Dr Mensen's face and Gibbs' insides glazed over.

"No," he practically whimpered, a first for him. "No, no, _no…_ he can't be. You said it was…you gave me your word…" With that, he fought against the hotchpotch of wires that encased him, thrashing to rouse himself. The Doctor stared with wide eyes for a moment before understanding hit and he reached out to forcibly calm his patient. This was met by a ferocious snarling and snapping and the medic had to put in some serious elbow grease to restrain the irate man.

"Be still," he barked, surprising Gibbs by his break from his mild-mannered norm. "You'll rip your stitches. Agent DiNozzo is absolutely fine and has been alert and relatively mobile for two days now. You may see him when I give the all-clear to do so and I tell you now, I won't be giving any such clearance if a single tube or wire becomes dislodged from your person that I haven't personally ok-d. You are in a post-operative state, not a battlefield. You will follow my instructions or there will be no visitors in this room. Are we understanding each other?"

Gibbs gaped for a moment, before his investigative instincts kicked back in.

"You frowned when I said his name," he argued quietly, "Why?"

Dr Mensen supressed a sigh.

"Agent DiNozzo has been proving a rather difficult patient. He is anxious to return to work and I think even you would agree, he is in no fit state to do so. It has taken the more persuasive staff here at the hospital to stop him checking out AMA. Them, and the rather terrifying dark-haired woman who comes every day. She seems to have put paid to any escape attempts for the time being, thankfully. The other man, McGee I think his name is, has been very helpful as well."

Gibbs' gut spasmed as he remembered the last conversation he'd had with Abby and Tim.

The concern must have splashed across his face because Dr Mensen filled in the gaps.

"They've been in to visit," he said quietly, "Agent DiNozzo, too. You've been out for nine days now, to be expected given your age compared to his. They've all been in at least once, every day. Forgive me if it's not my place, but they seem quite concerned for your wellbeing despite a rather…uhm, charged atmosphere." He smiled and made one last notation on the chart he held before murmuring that he would back to check in soon and sweeping from the room, leaving Gibbs to stare blankly at his retreating back. A blackness was beginning to form at the corner of each eye and despite fighting it, he was pulled back to a deep, dreamless sleep.

Hours later, he awoke the sound of hushed voices around his bed.

Opening his eyes was difficult, adjusting to the harsh overhead lighting even more so. Blinking in adjustment, his awakening went unnoticed by the three other occupants of the room for quite a considerable moment.

"I'm just saying, how can you trust him?" snapped Tim, "You've allowed yourself to be sliced open and your organs treated like a communal fund for a man who couldn't even tell you that he was dying in the first damned place. For a man that drove you out of your job and everything you knew. I don't understand it, Tony, I wish I did but I just don't."

"McGee, stop it. You can't-"

"No, Abby, no. Alright? You don't get to defend him. You don't get to say _aw guys, that just the way Gibbs is_ or _he had his reasons._ You don't get to say any of that. You weren't there on an hourly basis when he was treating Tony like crap for absolutely no reason. You didn't see it. So, don't tell me what I can and can't say. He's not going to-"

"Stop it."

Tim and Abby's necks swivelled to an ashen Tony, who despite his pallor, spoke with a resounding firmness.

"Stop it," he repeated. "This isn't the time or the place for this conversation. I made my choice and it was mine to make. Not yours, Abby, or yours McGee. It was mine and I stand by it. I told you two before, this is between me and Gibbs. Ok?"

A grudging silence filled the room as they both nodded, their opinions threatening to suffocate them.

A sickening feeling coating his stomach, Gibbs supposed he ought to make an appearance.

"Hey guys."

Three sets of eyes snapped to him and he hid his wince as he sat up straight in his hospital bed, knowing that he looked like hell. He should have expected it, but the sudden suffocating force that hammered his chest knocked the wind out of his sails. Abby's breath was hot on his neck as he flung herself at him, holding on for dear life. Wrapping his arms around her automatically, he couldn't help but hiss in pain as his stitches bulged at the sides.

"Abby," Tony's voice broke in, "C'mon, he needs to breathe. Loosen it up just a little."

Squawking as she realised this, she instantly broke away and roused herself. Her eyes were brimming with happy tears. Swallowing a lungful of air Gibbs looked around the trio and couldn't hide the wince as he spied Tim's uncharacteristic look of bitter anger. Tony looked merely tired and drawn and another spurt of guilt kicked in with vigour.

"How are you feeling?" Abby demanded, "The Doctors…they're really happy, Gibbs."

He nodded quietly and tried to find the words.

"I'm feeling great," he lied smoothly looking up at them, "But do you think Tony and I could have a second alone?"

Tim tensed as Abby nodded without compunction. Seeing the reluctance, Tony nodded imperceptibly. "Go on guys, I'll be back in my own room in a bit. Nurse Ratchet will be on the warpath soon enough and I don't want to get on her bad side again." He smiled a ghost of his once-upon-a-time ready smile and shrugged. "Tell her I've absconded if she grills you. You have no idea where I am. That'll keep her busy until the next medication run." Chuckling tearfully, Abby nodded and looked back at Gibbs as if she couldn't quite believe he was there. Seemingly satisfied that he was in fact there and breathing with normalcy, she dragged a none-too-happy Tim from the room. Pausing at the door despite the vice-like grip on his arm, the newly minted SFA cleared his throat pointedly.

"Rule number forty-two, Tony."

The swoosh of the electronic doors swallowed the two up leaving former SFA and SSA alone.

Gibbs broke the sticky silence first.

"He's got a point."

Tony nodded slowly.

"The Doctors…they're hopeful. For you, I mean. They're hopeful for you."

"They are," Gibbs agreed quietly. "And that's because of you, Tony. I'd be dead by now if it wasn't for you. Why you did what you did, I'll never know. But…" his voice constricted, "Thank you. I can't ever thank you or repay you, but _thank you."_

The younger man stared down at him with an odd blankness in his eyes.

"Does that mean you're actually going to try and live this time?"

Blanching, Gibbs nodded.

"I'll get through this if it kills me," he joked feebly, shutting up swiftly at the withering look he got in return. Another pressing silence blanketed the room as each man became lost to his own thoughts, uncomfortable in the other's presence, despite all the years between them. Machines beeped lazily in the background, no notes of urgency sounding.

"You tried to kill yourself. I didn't know that until I woke up from the operation."

Gibbs' entire body tensed as shame and regret lashed him without remorse.

"I was a coward, I can't deny it."

Tony breathed out deeply.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, "I never thought out of the two of us, I'd have to be the strong one."

Gibbs sank back on his pillows, a medicated weakness overcoming him, and smiled sadly.

"You were always the strong one, Tony."

The Vice Agent snorted in a bout of dry derision.

"Must've been, to stay as long as I did under your hammer of a hand."

He looked down at the gaunt face of the man he had nothing but confused emotion for and felt a headache coming on. A part of him loathed him, a part of him loved him. A part of him wanted to never lay eyes on him again, a part of him wanted to see what could be salvaged from the wreckage. He closed his eyes wearily. He was in his late forties, but he might as well have been in his late eighties such was his fatigue. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and thought quietly. He was going to be discharged in a day or two, Gibbs wasn't. He could leave and never see the man again. He'd done his part. A part no one, except maybe Abby, would have blamed him for turning down. He'd saved Gibbs' life. Quite literally, he'd saved it. There was nothing to keep him there, where he stood in a hospital gown that reeked of sharp disinfectant. He could leave and not feel a moments guilt about never looking back.

But he didn't.

Things would never be the same between he and his mentor again.

He knew that. He wasn't naïve.

Things had changed. Irrevocably so.

But some things were still the same. He was finding out, as he stood there, that thirteen years of ups and downs, of friendship and family couldn't be thrown away no matter what the provocation. No matter the justification. He saw Gibbs for what he was. One screwed up, misguided, son-of-a-bitch. His own worst enemy. He saw the pain of his past etched into the lines of his face and knew, then and there, that he was a product of his life experiences. He swallowed. He didn't know if he was doing the right thing or the wrong thing. All he knew was that he was doing _a_ thing. And where that thing led him, them, was anybody's guess.

"I guess you'll be needing someone to pick you up some stuff from home?"

Gibbs' head snapped up, shock splintered across his face.

"What?"

Tony rolled his eyes and gestured to the room at large.

"You don't look all that good in a gown, let's just put it that way."

Gibbs' eyes bulged.

"You're coming back?"

The younger man shook his head rapidly, suddenly terrified there'd been a terrible misunderstanding.

"No," he all but blurted, "I am never coming back to NCIS. Never. You need to understand that."

Gibbs shook his head with understanding spreading from eye to eye.

"No, I know that. I know we're never going to work together again," he said quietly, sadly, "I meant…you're coming back here, to the hospital? After you've been discharged?" His face was suddenly burning with a blush that stemmed from a concoction of emotions that no shrink would touch with a barge pole. "To see…me?"

Tony shrugged, doing his best to achieve the maximum degree of nonchalance.

He failed. Miserably.

"Who the hell else do you have?"

…..

A/N: One more chapter and this one is done, guys! *Rule#42: Never accept an apology from someone who just suckerpunched you.*

Inks x

…...


	20. Chapter 20

Two months had passed since hospital-gate. Eight weeks that had more packed into them than could be considered decent. As he walked across the familiar floor, he was reminded of the last time he walked across it with news that was life-altering, in the context of their small blip on the universe. The same creaking sounds from the same mottled floorboards announced his entry. Slipping down the basement stairs two at a time, he rolled his eyes in exasperated amusement at the familiar, but prohibited, sight.

"Didn't Dr Mensen give specific orders against manual labour for another month?"

Straightening up with a staining cloth in his hand, Gibbs gave a small shrug.

"Staining wood isn't manual labour. It's therapy. Some people think I need it."

Tony grinned, the envelope in his hand weighing as heavy as its predecessor had done.

"No arguments here. New boat?"

Shaking his head and throwing down the cloth, Gibbs sighed.

"Naw. Too much work these days. It's just a shelving unit, one upstairs gone skewed."

Hoisting himself up on the workbench, Tony was silent for a moment. Unsure how to broach the weighty subject he had come to discuss. His eyes flickered to the spot where he and the man in front of him had come to physical blows, mere months earlier. His eyes fluttered shut. The rate and expanse of change was sometimes boggling to him. But, it felt right to be where he was. Not right in the way it had once done, but right enough nonetheless. Knowing that the best way to get it over and done with was to just spit it out, he opened his mouth. But Gibbs, being Gibbs, got there first.

"Something I want to talk to you about, Tony. I'm glad you dropped by."

Pouring each of them a mason jar of…iced tea, he grimaced as he held one out to his former SFA.

"Just close your eyes and pretend it's bourbon. It's what I do."

Wrinkling his nose in distaste at the deceptively amber liquid, Tony decided to let it warm up a little.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" he asked curiously, "Is everything ok? Medically?"

Nodding immediately, the elder of the two leaned his back against the work bench, side by side with the younger man and took on a hue of pensiveness.

"The medical business is great. I'm doing better than they thought. Everything's working the way it oughta. My latest bloods came back clear. Some other mumbo jumbo than I didn't really understand, but Dr Mensen was smiling like a circus clown so I'm assuming it's all good. Gotta keep on the different medications for a while and see where we go from there."

Throwing his eyes up to heaven, Tony smiled his relief but arched a brow in increasing curiosity.

Gibbs looked down at the floor, swirling his iced tea mindlessly.

"I'm retiring my post at NCIS, Tony. Getting out of the game. I'm too old and I'm too tired. Can't do it anymore. It's a young man's game. Changing world out there and I don't want to keep up with it no more. I can't. So there's an SSA opening ripe for the taking. Tim would move to SFA, Bishop would move to JFA. There'd be room for another probie. Leon wanted my input on who should replace me. I told him I needed to consult someone before I gave him my answer."

He looked to the side and raised a brow.

"So, I'm consulting you. What do you reckon?"

Tony blinked in shock. All throughout Gibbs' recuperation, getting back to the job was all that had seemed to keep him going. And now, he was retiring? Just matter-of-factly letting him know that his job, the same job that had basically torn them apart, was there if he wanted it? He chewed his words carefully for a moment, before speaking quietly.

"I don't understand?"

Gibbs knocked back some iced tea, made a face at it and sighed.

"I don't have it in me anymore. I thought I did. I thought I could get better after the operation and get right back to it. But the more and more I think about it, the more and more that seems like the wrong decision." He looked his former SiC straight in the face and quirked a brow. "You gave me a part of your liver, a piece of your vital organs to live, Tony. What would I be saying about that if I went straight back to a job where people shot at me the same as they say hello to me?" He shook his head, a distant look crossing his face. "I wanted to die for the longest time. Now, I'm starting to find the will to live again. Being an active agent at my age, doesn't really gel all that well with that."

Tony stared.

"So you're just going to retire and sit around all day and mope?"

"No," laughed Gibbs quietly, "I'm retiring my post as SSA. I'm no longer cleared or willing to be in the field. But I, believe it or not, am going to become one of those assholes in fancy offices I've always hated. I'll do consultant work. I don't have any real financial responsibilities to speak of. I don't need money. So it'll work out nicely for me. Something to do without the commitment of a full time, dangerous job. But still having an input."

Silence swept through the basement as Tony considered this.

"That's not a bad idea," he concluded eventually, "That's not a bad idea at all."

Gibbs nodded.

"I'm glad you agree. So, what do you think about the SSA gig? Interested?"

The envelope suddenly weighed heavily in Tony's hands again. He turned it over, staring down at it. SSA…back to his old team, except this time, the lead. The permanent lead. No longer under Gibbs' shadow, no threat of him returning to take back the mantle. Was he interested? He couldn't say that he wasn't. He stared down at the envelope once more, his mind whirring. This wasn't the way he had predicted the conversation going. Gibbs had thrown him for somewhat of a loop. Closing his eyes, he searched for his gut instinct. He found it. He relied upon it and decided then and there to follow it. It had never let him down before.

"No," he said quietly, "I need to keep NCIS in my past. Need to keep that chapter closed, Gibbs."

The elder man nodded, his brow furrowed.

"Thought you'd say that. Is it because of me?"

It would be easy to lie, but the truth was something he'd learned to be the most preferable.

"A large part, yeah. There's memories there that I'd rather not have to look at every day. Even if I took that job as SSA and you weren't around anymore, I'd still be compared to you. I'd still be Gibbs' replacement, not an Agent in my own right. I'd still be under your shadow. My ways would always be compared to your ways. I'm done with that. But if you're still looking for my recommendation, you and I both know Tim is ready for SSA. Bishop's not SFA material yet, but she's not far off. Bridge the gap with another seasoned Agent and another probie and that team will be one of the best MCRT's that NCIS has ever had."

Gibbs smiled a rare smile.

"You were folder one for Leon. Your recommendations are in folder two. I'll see he gets the latter."

He gestured to the envelope in Tony's hands.

"I take it that's what you wanted to talk to me about?"

Glancing down at the paper once more, the younger man nodded and didn't beat around the bush.

"I've enjoyed working with Vice, cutting my teeth as team-lead. It's been good. They're good people and they do good work. But I've been offered a permanent agent-in-charge position with a special ops force of the CIA. Mostly long term undercover work. Large scale infiltrations and secondments to see the case through to legal. They're based out of a purpose-built branch in Michigan. Lots of travel involved. They gave me a week to consider and I sent my acceptance by courier today. I'm taking it. The only catch is, they need me right away. Vice is ok with me breaking out early, there's always someone waiting in the wings for a promotion. So…I leave for Michigan tonight."

Gibbs said nothing for the longest moment before breaking into a wide smile.

"The CIA huh? Well, I'll be damned. That's one hell of an achievement, you should be proud."

Tony searched his face for any signs of subterfuge, sarcasm or snark.

He found none.

"Thank you," he said quietly, "I am proud. It'll be a new start for me, something different."

Gibbs nodded before a sense of awkwardness overtook him.

"So, this is goodbye then?"

Tony opened his mouth uncertainly, but Gibbs realised he wasn't done.

"I need to thank you properly. Before you go. I know I've said it before, but I need to say it again. Thank you, Tony. Even thought I was a bitter bastard to you for the longest time, you were still on my six when you should have done a runner long ago. If it wasn't for you, I'd be dead now. I don't deserve it, never did. But you stuck it out anyway cos' that's just the kind of man you are. I know things ain't the same between us as they were and I know who to blame, but I still thank god for the day you knocked me on my ass in Baltimore. If you hadn't, I wouldn't like to think what my life would've been like."

His mouth swinging open, Tony stared at his former commanding Agent with shock.

"Jesus Christ….that shrink you're seeing must be worth her weight in gold."

Gibbs threw back his head and laughed as he hadn't laughed in years.

"She is," he admitted, "She's got the patience of a saint. I'll say that for her."

Tony grinned and hopped down from the workbench, realising that the basement he stood in represented the beginning, middle and now the end of his relationship with the enigma that was Leroy-Jethro Gibbs. He held out his hand to the elder man, raising a brow and clearing his throat.

"Despite the ups and downs, thank you for the last thirteen years, Boss."

Gibbs looked at the hand and shook his head.

Knocking it away, he pulled his former SiC into a brief hug, speaking quietly.

"Ain't your boss anymore. You're the boss now."

Breaking away with a grin, Tony nodded slowly.

"Guess I am."

The two considered each other for a moment, before the younger man spoke before he could help himself.

"You know, I have frequent flier miles I could give you. Michigan isn't that bad of a flight away. If you wanted, I mean. Be cool to see you now and again I suppose. If you've nothing better to do."

Gibbs threw down some ice tea.

"There's some good fishing up there. I could do with a new spot to vacation. Being semi-retired and all."

Tony arched a brow, a smile playing about his lips.

"You just make sure you don't overstay your welcome."

Gibbs cocked his head to the side, the eyes that had once burned with loathing and misery beginning to sparkle with warmth and humour once more.

"You have my word, Tony. I'll do better this time."

…..

A/N: Fin! Thanks for everything, guys! I chose not to let Tony stay at NCIS and force him to move on, but I wanted his and Gibbs' relationship to have the chance at repair. That's why they've been left the way they are, not fully healed but not completely broken!

Inks x

….


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